A honeycomb structure 1 for a catalyst carrier including partition walls 4 arranged so as to form a plurality of cells 3 which connect two end faces 2a, 2b, the partition walls 4 being porous and having a large number of pores; the structure further including plugging portions 10 arranged so as to alternately plug one of the end portions of each of the cells 3 in the two end faces 2a, 2b. A geometrical surface area (GSA: a value ((S1+S2)/V) obtained by dividing a total of the whole inner surface area (S1) excluding the cell pores and the whole inner surface area (S2) of the pores by the whole volume (V) of the honeycomb structure) is 80) cm2/cm3 or more and less than 300 cm2/cm3.