Fatigue and exercise intolerance are the most common complaints of patients with congestive heart failure. Heart transplantation improves the survival rate and quality of life in patients with severe symptoms of CHF and an ejection fraction of 20% or less. The main goal is to return to functional lifestyle with good quality of life in these patients in postoperative period. This study was designed to reveal factors affecting exercise performance in heart transplantation patients.: Fourteen heart transplantation recipients (M/F, age: 42±10years), and 14 healthy subjects (8M/6F, age: 45.5±13 years) included to our study. Pulmonary function tests and cardiopulmonary exercise test on cycle ergometry were performed to all patients. Mean values of exercise duration (10.7±4.3 minutes), peak VO2 (1252±641 ml/min/kg), and peak oxygen pulse (5.5±3.3ml/beat) of the patients were significantly lower when we compared to healthy subjects (p<0.05). General fatigue was the most common reason for terminating the exercise testing. There were no cardiac or pulmonary limiting factors during exercise testing in our patients. In this study, we concluded that sedentary life style was the most common factor that limited exercise performance in heart transplantation recipients. Exercise rehabilitation should be performed to achieve a good quality of life in these patients.