With a method, apparatus and system for determining a terminal state, that a network side considers that a terminal is in an offline state by mistake can be avoided. The method includes: judging that no location update initiated by the terminal is received when a reachable timer corresponding to the terminal is expired, then sending paging message to the terminal, and triggering the terminal to initiate an interaction process with a network side to determine the terminal state. The apparatus comprises a judgment module, a sending module, and a state determination module. By adopting the method, apparatus and system, the network side can timely acquire the state of an MTC terminal, and will not consider that the terminal is in the offline state and delete the mobility context of the terminal by mistake.