To provide a protective material for packaging which is capable of being easily manufactured at a low cost, easily stored in a small space, commonly used for packaging a plurality of kinds of articles to be packaged of different sizes, and beautifully packaged with an excellent appearance for the articles of any size.

In a protective material for packaging, a protective cylindrical body 6 is constituted by a protective stock material 1 such as paper, and an article to be packaged such as play parts is placed in the protective cylindrical body 6 and packaged. The protective cylindrical body 6 is foldable along the folding lines 7-10 parallel to the axial direction of a plurality of cylindrical formed in its circumferential direction, lapping parts 18, 19, 20, 21 of approximately the same width are provided in a strip form on each side of at least one the folding lines 7, 9 of the protective cylindrical body 6, and the lapped parts 18, 19 and 20, 21 are lapped on each other and connected in an attachable/ detachable manner to provide adjustable pleat parts 11, 12.