This article deals with the vibration analysis of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) shell structures. The material properties of an FG-CNTRC shell are graded smoothly through the thickness direction of the shell according to uniform distribution and some other functionally graded (FG) distributions (such as FG-X, FG-V, FG-O and FG-(Formula presented.) of the volume fraction of the carbon nanotube (CNT), and the effective material properties are estimated by employing the extended rule of mixture. An eight-noded shell element considering transverse shear effect according to Mindlin’s hypothesis has been employed for the finite element modelling and analysis of the composite shell structures. The formulation of the shell midsurface in an arbitrary curvilinear coordinate system based on the tensorial notation is also presented. The Rayleigh damping model has been implemented in order to study the effects of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the damping capacity of such shell structures. Different types of shell panels have been analyzed in order to study the impulse and frequency responses. The influences of CNT volume fraction, CNT distribution, geometry of the shell and material distributions on the dynamic behavior of FG-CNTRC shell structures have also been presented and discussed. Various types of FG-CNTRC shell structures (such as spherical, ellipsoidal, doubly curved and cylindrical) have been analyzed and discussed in order to compare studies in terms of settling time, first resonant frequency and absolute amplitude corresponding to first resonant frequency based on the impulse and frequency responses, and the effects of CNTs on vibration responses of such shell structures are also presented. The results show that the CNT distribution and volume fraction of CNT have a significant effect on vibration and damping characteristics of the structure. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Wien.