The main purpose of reinforcement in a soil mass is to limit the development of tensile forces in the soil and geosynthetics are one of the newest materials used for this purpose. It’s recommended to use non-cohesive soils in embankments reinforced with geosynthetics, but in the region of Curvelo-MG-Brazil these soils are not easily available at the site construction. This study has as main objective to evaluate the variation of the unconfined compressive strength of a clayey soil typical of the city of Curvelo-MG-Brazil reinforced with geogrids and woven geotextiles. Soil characterization tests and standard Proctor compaction test were performed in soil samples, and uniaxial compression tests were performed on samples of soil without geosynthetics and soil with geogrids and soil with woven geotextile. From the results of the characterization tests it was noticed that the studied soil is a red sandy clay with open graduation and high plasticity, compatible with the type of soil found in the region. The unconfined compressive strength obtained in the uniaxial compression tests were 345.86 kPa for the soil without geosynthetics, 366.47 kPa for the soil with geogrid and 348.87 kPa for the soil with woven geotextile. The coefficient of variation was small in all of them, being the biggest one 7.43. It’s important to notice that the samples without geosynthetics and with geogrids had their failure with axial deformations of 3.43% and 4.91%, respectively. However, the unconfined compressive strength of the soil with woven geotextile was obtained with 15% of axial deformation, as it’s the test stop criteria. As the results show, the use of geosynthetic reinforcement in clayey soils has a small increase in the unconfined compressive strength. It’s recommended to continue this study with bigger samples and with shear strength tests.