The present invention discloses a resource allocation method, a resource contention method, and a related apparatus, so as to resolve a problem, in a contention-based distributed resource reuse method in the prior art, that a delay in obtaining an available resource by UE is long. The method in the present invention includes: sending, by a first terminal, declaration information used to indicate an available resource; receiving, by the first terminal, resource request information sent by at least one second terminal according to the declaration information; and sending, by the first terminal, response information, where the response information includes an identification of at least one third terminal, so as to instruct the at least one third terminal to use the available resource, and the at least one third terminal is selected from the at least one second terminal.