For reinforced concrete (RC) pipe pile used in the high-pile wharf in the marine environment, due to the dry–wet cycling in the splash/tidal zone, corrosion of the reinforcing bars in the pipe pile often occurs in this zone. In the present paper, the lateral ultimate bearing capacity of the RC pipe pile with corrosion-damaged partial length is predicted via the finite element method. Corrosion-induced concrete cover cracking, the reduction of effective cross section and strength of steel bars, as well as the bond degradation between steel bars and concrete are considered to predict the lateral ultimate bearing capacity of the corroded RC pipe piles under different axial compression ratios and corrosion levels. The modelling results show that, the ultimate capacity of the corroded RC pipe piles reduces due to the corrosion-damaged partial length. The failure location of the corroded RC pipe piles transfers from the bottom region of the uncorroded pile to the middle-corroded length. The increased axial compression ratio, corrosion level and corrosion-damaged length all affects the ultimate capacity and failure mode of the corroded RC pipe piles.