A packet processing method includes a first network device receiving a first Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) packet including a first BIER header. When the first BIER packet is a packet sent to a second network device, and in response to determining that the second network device is an edge node device in a BIER communication network and does not support BIER packet forwarding, the first network device determines a target label used for a reverse path forwarding (RPF) check, updates the first BIER packet to obtain a second BIER packet, where the second BIER packet includes the target label but does not include the first BIER header, and sends the second BIER packet to the second network device.