To provide a rubber-steel cord composite material which holds good adhesiveness and can simultaneously sufficiently reduce the compounded amounts of an adhesive promoter and sulfur in a coating rubber, and to provide a pneumatic radial tire using the rubber-steel cord composite material as a reinforcing layer.

This rubber-steel cord composite material produced by twisting a plurality of sheath filaments or sheath strands together around a core prepared by coating or filling a filling rubber (A) on the peripheries or spaces of one or more core filaments or core strands, thus forming a layer-twisted steel cord or composite twisted steel cord, and coating the outer surface of the layer-twisted steel cord or composite twisted steel cord with a coating rubber (C), is characterized in that the filling rubber (A) contains an adhesive promoter.