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This study aims to empirically verify the determinants of the capital structure of Brazilian publicly traded companies on the BM&FBosvepa during 2010-2017. The factors considered in the analysis are those proposed in the main theories about capital structure: profitability, risk, size, tangibility and growth opportunities. Subsidiarily to these factors, a set of sectoral dummies was included in order to highlight any specific characteristic of a given economic sector. It was used the statistical method of panel data and models with fixed effects and with variable effects. The sample is composed of 186 companies, divided into 19 economic sectors. The statistical tests evidenced the non-significance of the sectors when pointing to the estimation of a model with fixed effects. The results indicate that profitability, risk and growth opportunities induce lower indebtedness, that company size induces greater indebtedness and that tangibility had no influence on the level of indebtedness of the companies of the sample in the studied period. In spite of their theoretical justification, the results obtained together do not confirm a specific theory about the capital structure of public companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]