The present invention discloses a directional link maintenance method and a station STA, to improve accuracy and timeliness of directional link availability determined by the STA. The method in the embodiments of the present invention includes: monitoring, by a first station STA, an information packet, where the information packet carries first identification information, and the first identification information is used to identify a first directional transmit beam that is used a second STA when the second STA sends the information packet; determining, by the first STA, whether the information packet is an information packet that is sent by the second STA to a third STA, and obtaining the first identification information if the information packet is an information packet that is sent by the second STA to the third STA; and determining, by the first STA, whether the first identification information matches preset second identification information, and if the first identification information matches the preset second identification information, determining, by the first STA, that the first directional transmit beam matches a second directional transmit beam, and changing a value of a counter that corresponds to a directional link between the first STA and the second STA, where the second directional transmit beam is a directional transmit beam determined by the second STA on the directional link through beam training, and the second identification information is used to identify the second directional transmit beam.