The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties in the Brazilian version of the Human Activity Profile (HAP), an instrument for the assessment of daily functions and level of physical activity. The HAP was translated into Portuguese following the recommended methodology and applied to 230 community-dwelling elderly (66.32 +/- 8.5 years) from the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The data were submitted to Rasch analysis, which detected very easy and difficult items, making it possible to employ the instrument with both frail and highly functional individuals. The separation index of 3.1 indicated that the items divided the individuals into three levels of functional ability. Of the 94 HAP items, six (6.38%) did not fit the statistical model, which jeopardized its construct validity, since the items did not fit into a continuum. Therefore, caution should be taken when employing the HAP to individuals having similar characteristics. If HAP is applied to different samples and the proportion of erratic items is still more than 5%, modification, substitution, or exclusion of those items is suggested to guarantee that HAP measures a unidimensional construct.