Disclosed are downlink control information transmission and reception methods and devices, for solving the technical problem of excessive high power consumption caused by high workload of terminal monitoring in the case of higher frequency. The method comprises: a base station determines at least one beam direction for transmitting downlink control information of a terminal, and generates first downlink control channel configuration information according to at least one determined beam direction, the first downlink control channel configuration information being used for indicating the beam direction of the downlink control information transmitted by the base station to the terminal; after transmitting the first downlink control channel configuration information to the terminal, the base station transmits the downlink control information to the terminal in the at least one beam direction.