A permission management method and a terminal device are provided, where the permission management method is applied to the terminal device including a first display area and a second display area. The permission management method includes: determining a target permission management policy corresponding to a first application based on a display area in which the first application is located (101); and controlling permission management for the first application according to the target permission management policy (102); where the target permission management policy includes a first permission management policy corresponding to the first display area and/or a second permission management policy corresponding to the second display area.