The present invention is to provide a rubber composition for a tire tread, which can produce a studless tire having both excellent performance on ice and excellent wear resistance, and to provide a studless tire using the rubber composition. The rubber composition for a tire tread of the present invention contains 100 parts by mass of a diene rubber (A) containing a modified butadiene rubber and from 0.5 to 25 parts by mass of thermally expandable microcapsules (B). The modified butadiene rubber is obtained by modifying an unmodified butadiene rubber with a carboxy group-containing nitrone compound. The content of the modified butadiene rubber in the diene rubber (A) is from 20 to 65 mass %.