A method and apparatus for performing an initial access procedure in a wireless communication system is provided. A low cost user equipment (UE) transmits a list of capabilities to a network, and receives a reject message from the network when at least one of the capabilities is not supported by the network. The list of capabilities may be transmitted during a random access procedure via a random access preamble on a physical random access channel (PRACH) or a message 3 on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH). The reject message may be received during the random access procedure a random access response or an acknowledge message for the message 3.