The deterioration and cracking of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges due to the chloride-induced corrosion of steel reinforcement is an inherently time-dependent stochastic phenomenon. In the current practice of bridge management systems, however, the determination of the condition states of deteriorated bridges is highly dependent on the opinion of experienced inspectors. Taking such complexity into account, the current paper presents a new stochastic predictive methodology using a non-homogeneous Markov process, which directly relates the visual inspection data (corrosion rate and crack widths) to the structural vulnerability of deteriorated concrete bridges. This methodology predicts the future condition of corrosion-induced damage (concrete cracking) by linking structural vulnerability analysis and a discrete-time Markov chain model. The application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through a case-study corrosion-damaged RC bridge pier.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘A cracking approach to inventing new tough materials: fracture stranger than friction’.