Exterior plate-column connection has an unsymmetrical critical section for eccentric shear of which perimeter is less than that of interior connection, and hence, around the connection, unbalanced moment and eccentric shear are developed by both gravity load and lateral loads. Therefore, exterior connection is susceptible to punching shear failure. Current design provision cannot accurately explain strength of existing experiments, partly due to the complexity in the behavior of exterior plate-column connection, or partly due to the theoretical deficiency of the strength analysis model adopted. In the present study, nonlinear finite element analyses were performed for exterior connections belonging to continuous flat plate. For each direction of lateral load, the behavior and strength of exterior plate-column connection were quite different. Based on the numerical result, strength prediction model for exterior connection was proposed for each direction of lateral load. Compared with existing experiments, the proposed method was verified.