Embodiments of the disclosed technologies provide a carrier frequency selecting method and apparatus. The method comprises: determining, by UE, whether information of a service carrier frequency sent by a base station is received, wherein the service carrier frequency is the carrier frequency to carry traffic selected by the base station when a target cell carrying the UE is a multi-carrier cell; residing, by the UE, at a carrier frequency corresponding to the information for a service carrier frequency, if so; and, otherwise, residing, by the UE, at an original camped carrier frequency. With the embodiments of the disclosed technologies, the problem that a service carrier frequency selecting strategy in related techniques is to perform selection passively and lacks initiative is solved, and a technical basis for balancing loads on carrier frequencies carrying traffic is provided and further system efficiency is enhanced for an NB-IoT system, which is mainly to transmit small data.