Disclosed is a method and system for selecting a candidate neighbor cell in the present invention. The method includes: determining a candidate cell set of a serving cell; acquiring a base station closest to the serving cell from the candidate cell set, and adding all the cells under the base station into a neighbor cell set; deleting a cell sheltered by the base station and cells included in the neighbor cell set from the candidate cell set; judging whether the candidate cell set is empty; if not, then returning to the step of acquiring a base station closest to the serving cell; and if yes, then taking cells in the neighbor cell set as a first layer of neighbor cells of the serving cell.