A signaling processing method and an apparatus relate to the field of communications technologies and include receiving, by an access and mobility management network element, control signaling from a session management network element, where the control signaling includes identification information of a protocol data unit (PDU) session of a terminal, and the PDU session is established based on a non-3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) access network, and determining, by the access and mobility management network element, whether to send a first message to the terminal using a 3GPP access network when the terminal is in an idle mode on the non-3GPP access network, where the first message is triggered by the access and mobility management network element based on the control signaling.