A polar code encoding method and apparatus, the method including determining a sorted sequence to encode to-be-encoded bits, where the sorted sequence represents reliability sorting of N polar channels, where N is a mother code length of a polar code, where N is a positive integer, where N is a power of two, and where a minimum sequence number of polar channels in the sorted sequence is 1, obtaining encoded bits by the apparatus by performing polar code encoding on the to-be-encoded bits using the sorted sequence, and outputting, by the apparatus, the encoded bits.