The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for improving SIP parse performance. The method comprising the steps of: receiving a text-based SIP message to be sent to a SIP server; according to a SIP message filter table, determining whether the text-based SIP message needs to be transformed to a token-based message; and in the case that the text-based SIP message needs to be transformed to a token-based message, performing the transformation and sending the transformed token-based message to said SIP server, otherwise directly sending the text-based SIP message to said SIP server. According to the present invention, larger SIP message throughput in a SIP server and better utilization of resources of a front end device can be achieved.