The invention includes a method and apparatus for providing SIP message prioritization between network elements along at least a portion of an end-to-end path between a SIP client and a SIP server. The method includes determining a SIP message prioritization policy and distributing the SIP message prioritization policy toward a prioritizing network element adapted to assign message priority levels to respective received SIP messages using the SIP message prioritization policy, process the received SIP messages according to the respective assigned message priority levels, and transmit the prioritized SIP messages toward at least one network element in a manner for propagating the respective assigned message priority levels to the at least one network element. The prioritizing network elements include SIP network elements and non-SIP network elements.