Wind turbine technology has developed tremendously over the past years. In Egypt, the Zafarana wind farm is currently generating a capacity of 517 MW, representing one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world. It is located in an active seismic zone along the west side of Gulf Suez. Accordingly, seismic risk assessment is demanded for studying the structural integrity of wind towers under expected seismic hazard events. In the context of ongoing joint Egypt–US research project ‘‘Seismic Risk Assessment of Wind Turbine Towers in Zafarana wind Farm Egypt'' (Project ID: 4588). The present paper describes the dynamic performance investigation and soil structure interaction of an existing Vestas V47 wind turbine tower. Both experimental and numerical work are illustrated explaining the methodology adopted to investigate the dynamic behavior of the tower and foundation under seismic load. Field dynamic testing of the full-scale tower was performed using ambient vibration techniques (AVT). The natural frequencies, their corresponding mode shapes and damping ratios were successfully identified using ambient vibration techniques AVT. A vibration-based finite element model (FEM) was applied using ANSYS 3D software including soil structure interaction of tower foundation. Results show that identification of the actual dynamic properties of the existing tower was successfully performed based on AVT. Also, using ANSYS 3D to evaluating the modulus of subgrade reaction shows that soil structure interaction is expected to govern the calculated vertical and horizontal subgrade reactions to estimate the bearing capacity of wind turbine towers foundations.