Abstract: In this paper, the incremental harmonic balance for nonlinearityidentification (IHBNID) is presented for the modeling and parametricidentification of nonlinear systems. The effects of harmonic balancenonlinearity identification (HBNID) and IHBNID are also studied and comparedby using the numerical simulation. Considering the Mathieu-Duffing equationas an example, the effectiveness of the IHBNID can be verified. With the aidof the new method, the derivation procedures of the incremental harmonicbalance method are simplified. The results show that the IHBNID is highlyefficient for computation, and its performances excel in those of the HBNID,such as the computation accuracy and the noise resistance.