A physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) configuration method and a terminal are provided. The PDCCH configuration method includes: receiving a PDCCH search space configuration, where the PDCCH search space configuration is associated with M control resource sets (coresets) and N time-domain monitoring positions; forming L PDCCH search subspaces based on the M coresets and the N time-domain monitoring positions, where one PDCCH search subspace includes one coreset and one time-domain monitoring position; and receiving a PDCCH in the L PDCCH search subspaces; where M and N are both integers greater than or equal to 1, and L is an integer greater than 1.