Disclosed are a method and an apparatus for sending and receiving a downlink control channel. The method comprises: a base station determines position(s) of one or more search spaces according to at least one of a coverage level and a message type, and sends a downlink control channel in the search space, the coverage level comprising at least a non-coverage enhanced level (CE0) and coverage enhanced levels (CE1, CE2, CE3), the message type comprising at least random access response (RAR), paging, radio resource control (RRC), and transmission power control (TPC); the search space comprising: a collective search space (CSS), a dedicated search space (dedicated SS), and a non-user search space (non-USS); and the position of the search space comprising: a narrow-band/frequency domain position, a time domain position, and a set position.