A user equipment paging method and a mobility management entity (MME) in order to improve user equipment paging efficiency, where the method includes determining, by the MME before paging user equipment in an idle state, a base station last accessed by the user equipment, determining, by the MME, that the base station last accessed by the user equipment is in a non-overload state, and sending, by the MME, a paging message including an identifier of the user equipment to the base station last accessed by the user equipment.