Objectives: To characterize the sociodemographic profile of the elderly, verify the level of fragility according to gender, functional independence and instrumental activities of daily living, and to correlate the dimensions of the Functional Independence Measure and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living with age, education, frailty and morbidities. Methods: A cross-sectional and observational study using a sample of 240 elderly living in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo (Brazil). The collection period was November/2010 and February/2011. The questionnaires used were: sociodemographic, Edmonton Frail Scale, Functional Independence Measure and the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale of Lawton and Brody. For analysis, we used descriptive statistics and the Student's t-test and Pearson's correlation. Results: Mean age was 73.5 years (± 8.4), 57.5% were married, 39.1% had some level of fraility. Among the frail elderly, 29.8% had minimal dependence/supervision, and 81.9% had partial dependence for instrumental activities of daily living. Conclusion: There was a greater dependence in activities for the frail elderly, and females had a higher prevalence of frailty.