To provide a control method and apparatus for a thermal transfer head unit, and a printer capable of maintaining printing position accuracy and suppressing the formation of creases when performing multilayer recoating.

In the control method for the thermal transfer head unit for thermally transferring ink of an ink ribbon 2 to an intermediate transfer film 5 by the thermal head unit 4, the control position of the thermal head unit 4 in thermal transfer is set to a position corresponding to the ink film thickness of the intermediate transfer film 5.