Motion retargeting with kinematic constraints is implemented in a digital medium environment. Generally, the described techniques provide for retargeting motion data from a source motion sequence to a target visual object. Accordingly, the described techniques position a target visual object in a defined visual environment to identify kinematic constraints of the target object relative to the visual environment. Further, the described techniques utilize an iterative optimization process that fine tunes the conformance of retargeted motion of a target object to the identified kinematic constraints.