Background: the presence of Candida in subgingival plaque of patients with periodontal disease may have clinical and therapeutic implications. Objective: identify the presence of Candida in patients with chronic periodontitis and establish its correlation to periodontal pathogens, clinical parameters and smoking. Method: seventy-six patients with chronic periodontitis were studied. Subgingival samples were processed by culture. Spearmans nonparametric test was used to determine the correlation between periodontal pathogens, clinical and smoking with the presence of Candida . Results: the prevalence of Candida was 13.2%. Candida albicans was the most prevalent species. There were statistically significant positive correlations between the presence of Candida species with smoking, clinical attachment level and presence of Prevotella melaninogenica . Also found statistically significant negative correlations between the presence of Candida with Fusobacterium nucleatum,