A thermal transfer sheet is provided that can yield thermally transferred images, which possess excellent various fastness or resistance properties even under severe service conditions, and comprises a transferable protective layer having good transferability. In a thermal transfer sheet comprising a substrate sheet and a thermally transferable protective layer on the substrate sheet, the thermally transferable protective layer comprises a scratch-resistant layer which is repeatedly provided one by one for each picture plane unit in the thermal transfer sheet. An area of the scratch-resistant layer for each picture plane unit is smaller than an area of an object in its transfer surface. By virtue of this construction, at the time of the transfer of a protective layer onto an object, layer cutting does not occur within the scratch-resistant layer but within other layer (such as peel layer or adhesive layer), and, consequently, the protective layer can be transferred with good transferability.