The present disclosure relates to the mobile communications field. In a positioning base station determining method, a positioning server receives a positioning request message from a terminal device; the positioning server obtains information about a candidate base station from a serving base station of the terminal device according to the positioning request message, where the information about a candidate base station indicates at least one base station; and the positioning server determines a positioning base station set according to the information about a candidate base station, where the positioning base station set includes a positioning base station configured to position the terminal device, and the positioning base station includes one or more of the at least one base station and/or the serving base station.