A cell handover method, an apparatus, and a system are disclosed, to resolve a problem that, in the prior art, a terminal device easily accesses a fake base station when performing a cell handover. In this application, a first base station may send a measurement control message to a terminal device, where the measurement control message includes information about a pilot signal allocated by a second base station to the terminal device. After the first base station receives a measurement response message from the terminal device, where the measurement response message includes signal quality of the pilot signal, and determines that the signal quality of the pilot signal satisfies a handover condition, the first base station performs a cell handover process for the terminal device. The first base station first determines that the signal quality, reported by the terminal device, of the pilot signal satisfies the handover condition, so that the terminal device is effectively prevented from directly accessing a fake base station, and it is also ensured that the terminal device can successfully access the second base station without a call drop.