There is provided a magnetic recording medium which is well evaluated in a running reliability, has small amount of seizing on a magnetic head, suppresses a wear rate of the magnetic head, and maintains high reproduction power during running of the magnetic tape for a long time. The magnetic recording medium, in tape form, reproduces a magnetic recorded signal by a reproducing magnetic head utilizing a magnetoresistive effect element, and has a nonmagnetic layer including nonmagnetic powder dispersed in a binder, and a magnetic layer including ferromagnetic powder dispersed in a binder, the nonmagnetic layer and the magnetic layer are successively formed on a long tape-like nonmagnetic substrate, wherein the nonmagnetic layer contains the nonmagnetic powder having pH of 7.5 or more, and wherein the nonmagnetic layer or/and the magnetic layer contain at least one fatty acid amide having an alkyl group having 8 or more carbon atoms.