To provide an ink sheet for laser thermal transfer recording for obtaining an excellent image having no roughly halftone dots even by using recycled paper for a permanent support to be retransferred from an image receiving sheet by obtaining image reproducibility stable at wide range of environmental temperature and humidity, and a method for forming the image.

In the ink sheet for laser thermal transfer recording used for the method for forming the image comprising the steps of superposing the ink sheet having at least a photothermal conversion layer and an ink layer and the image receiving sheet so that the ink layer surface of the ink sheet having at least the receiving layer and the image receiving surface of the receiving sheet are opposed on a support, exposure heating in an image-like state to thermally transfer the ink layer to the receiving layer to form the image, and then transferring the image onto a permanent support, a difference between a water content of the lower layer adjacent to the ink layer at 19°C and 30%RH and a water content of the ink layer at 27°C and 70%RH is 2.5% or less.