To provide a thermal recording material excellent in recording image quality, recording preservability, water resistance and the matching properties with a thermal head and having no problem in recording running properties especially even under a hot and humid environment.

In the thermal recording material wherein a thermal recording layer containing an electron donating compound and an electron acceptive compound and a protective layer containing a water soluble adhesive, a water- resistant agent and a pigment are successively provided on a support, a spherical pigment with a mean particle size of about 1-10 μm is added to the protective layer and the coefficient of static friction of plain plate glass (based on the prescription of JIS R 3201) with a thickness of 10 mm and the surface of the protective layer under a 40°C/85% RH atmosphere is set to 0.2-0.6.