The invention provides a signaling tracing method and a signaling tracing device. The signaling tracing method applied to a first network element comprises the steps as follows: after a network management system initiates signaling tracing, the network management system detects whether an own signaling load capacity exceeds a preset load, and acquires signaling load information; a first signalingmessage is sent to a second network element, wherein the first signaling message at least comprises the signaling load information of the first network element, and the second network element is a front-end network element of the first network element. Therefore, according to the scheme provided by the invention, when sensing that the network element itself is overloaded, the network element can notice the front-end network element, so as to be convenient for the front-end network element to decide whether signaling tracing is continuously initiated in the following, and thus a signaling stormcaused by overloaded signaling tracing is effectively suppressed, and the network load is relieved.