Embodiments of the present invention provide a precoding method, a base station and a user equipment, relate to a communication field, may select a nonlinear precoding solution adaptively, and improve a system performance. The precoding method comprises: a base station acquires predetermined parameter(s) of at least one user equipment; calculates the acquired predetermined parameter(s) to obtain a calculation performance index; selects a target precoding solution according to the calculation performance index; precodes data information of all the user equipment(s) according to the target precoding solution; if the target precoding solution is a nonlinear precoding solution, sends the data information and indication signalling indicating information of the nonlinear precoding solution to each user equipment; and the user equipment receives the data information and the indication signalling which are sent by the base station; selects a receiver according to a receiver type obtained according to the indication signalling; and detects the received data information using the selected receiver. The embodiments of the present invention are used for precoding in an MIMO system.