A thin film rare earth permanent magnet capable of making the thin film by vapor growth anisotropic ina lamination direction, and a method for manufacturing the permanent magnet. There are repeated a number of operations to form atomic laminate units (13) by laminating a monoatomic layer (10) of a rare earth element on a substrate (1) of a non-magnetic material having a flat smoothness and then by laminating an atomic laminate (12) of a transient metal element having a plurality of monoatomic layers (11) of a transient metal element, so that the atomic laminate units (13) of a characteristic construction are laminated in a plurality of layers. As a result, each atomic laminate (12) has an easily magnetizable axis in the laminate direction of the monoatomic layers (11), and is sandwiched between the monoatomic layers (10, 10) of the rare earth element so that an inverse magnetic domain is suppressed to establish a strong coercive force. Moreover, the content of the transient metal element to the rare earth metal is raised to improve the residual magnetic flux density drastically.