HIV infection is a global growing pandemic, and it is considered a public health problem. Treatment advances improved survival rates for HIV-infected individuals, although not always with a good quality of life (QoL). The aim of this study was to assess the QoL of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the city of São José, Brazil. A cross-sectional study was performed involving a convenience sample of 85 individuals. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect sociodemographic information, treatment length and period of infection. The WHOQoL-HIV-Bref instrument was used to assess QoL. The collected data were first described in proportions, means, median and percentiles. Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test was used to test association between the perception of poor QoL taking the first quartile of the distribution of values with gender, age, education level, marital status, period of diagnosis, infection status, self-rated health status and believing to be ill or not. The p values were established at <0.05. The found mean score of WHOQoL-HIV-Bref was 14.1 (SD = 2.9). Lower education level (p=0.011) and believing to be ill (p<0.001) were associated with poor QoL. Also lower education level was associated with poor QoL in the psychological (p=0.020) and environment (p=0.047) domains; being diagnosed with HIV infection within the past five years (p=0.029) was found to be associated with poor QoL in the social relationships domain; and believing to be ill was associated with all domains (physical: p<0.001; psychological: p=0.022; level of independence: p=0.009; social relationships: p=0.009; environment: p=0.005; and spirituality/religion/personal beliefs: p=0.021). It could be concluded that in general, PLHIV have a good QoL. A poor QoL was associated mainly with lower education level and when they believe to be ill.