Submerged barriers are constructed in coastal zones for shoreline or harbor protection or to prevent the beach ero-sion. In the present study, the wave run-up on a vertical seawall protected by a submerged barrier is analyzed. The phys-ical configurations include a rigid barrier and a long channel of finite depth. For linear water waves, by matching the ve-locity along the barrier and along the gap, the systems of linear equations about the velocity potentials are obtained. The wave run-up is further analyzed for various settings of barrier height and distance between the barrier and the wall, i.e. the chamber length. For nonlinear waves and random sea waves, a numerical model is extended to investigate the effect parameters of the barrier on the wave rim-up against the seawall. Not only the numerical simulations, but also the analyt-ical results illustrate that the wave run-up on the seawall depends very much on the distance between the barrier and the vertical seawall.