The authors have performed a model calculation of a steady-state confinement regime in stellarators. Plasma is assumed to be injected continuously into the magnetic field region in conditions such that the plasma is isothermal and Te = Ti = T = const (or d ln T/d ln N ≪ 1 in the whole of the confinement region considered), and the diffusion process is determined only by pair collisions with allowance for toroidal effects. The calculations relate to stellarators with different multipolarities of the helical field (ℓ = 2,3) and one of the purposes was to compare the possibilities of stellarators as a function of this parameter. Analysis of the particle balance equations, allowing for a self-consistent electrical field and the effects of magnetic confinement in a highly dilute plasma, has shown that a steady-state plasma confinement regime under the conditions considered is not possible for arbitrarily low boundary values of density, Nbound > Ncr. When Nbound < Ncr, the only confinement regime possible is a relaxation regime with a time-pulsating density distribution. The results obtained for steady-state regimes are insensitive to the multipolarity of the helical field ℓ and show that it is possible in principle to use stellarators as the prototype of a thermonuclear reactor within the framework of the approach outlined.