A point cloud encoding and decoding method, an encoder, and a decoder are provided. The encoder determines a processing order of point cloud data during point cloud encoding. The encoder determines a coordinate-axis-order index corresponding to the processing order. The encoder encodes the coordinate-axis-order index and signals encoded bits into a bitstream. The encoder processes the point cloud data according to the processing order, to obtain point cloud data to-be-encoded. The encoder encodes the point cloud data to-be-encoded and signals encoded bits into the bitstream. The decoder decodes a bitstream to obtain a coordinate-axis-order index, determines a processing order of point cloud data during point cloud decoding according to the coordinate-axis-order index, decodes the bitstream to obtain recovered data of the point cloud data, and determines a position of coordinate data of the point cloud data in a storage unit of the recovered data according to the processing order.