A communications method includes: sending a scheduling request to a terminal device through a PDCCH, where the scheduling request indicates the terminal device to send data to a network device based on a preset time interval; in response to not receiving the data that is sent by the terminal device through a PUSCH, determining, based on measurement gap configuration information of the terminal device, whether a time point at which the terminal device does not send the data is within a measurement gap window; and if it is determined that the time point at which the terminal device does not send the data is within the measurement gap window, sending, to the terminal device, a redundancy version number used for a next HARQ retransmission.