The objective of this present work was to study smoking prevalence in a sample of students in public and private institutions in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes. The survey questionnaire was applied to 600 students. Of this sample, 85,5% were considered nonsmokers, 5,5% were considered former-smokers and 9,0% were considered smokers. Among smokers this research observed that the starting age for cigarette smoking was between 16 and 17 years old (38,9%); curiosity being the most mentioned reason for starting smoking (55,6%). Given this situation, the study proposes the adoption of antismoking measures by the educational institution.