Setback may have the following meanings:

• a problem
• Setback (land use), the distance a structure must be from the edge of a lot
• Setback (architecture), making upper storeys of a high-rise further back than the lower ones for aesthetic, structural, or land-use restriction reasons
• Setback (game), a card game
• Setback arming - a safety-arming mechanism used on some munition fuzes, whereby the massive g-force caused by firing the munition from a gun barrel (e.g. an artillery or mortar shell) forces mechanisms in the fuze into alignment, allowing detonation to take place when it hits the target.