A common information transmission method and an apparatus relate to the communications field, and to reduce repeated sending of common information from a base station to a plurality of user equipments (UEs) during sending of the common information, and improve utilization of resources between the base station and the UEs. The method includes obtaining, by UE, frequency domain location information of a first transmission bandwidth, determining, by the UE, a size and a location of the first transmission bandwidth in a bandwidth of the UE according to the frequency domain location information, where the bandwidth of the UE is one of system bandwidths, and receiving, by the UE over the first transmission bandwidth according to the size and the location of the first transmission bandwidth, common information sent by a base station.