A communication method and apparatus are provided. A terminal device determines a first transmission time period and a second transmission time period, where the first transmission time period includes X1 time units, the second transmission time period includes X2 time units, and the first transmission time period does not overlap the second transmission time period. The terminal device sends a first reference signal in the first transmission time period and a first uplink signal in the second transmission time period, where the first uplink signal includes at least one of a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), or a demodulation reference signal (DMRS). Therefore, the terminal device may additionally send the first reference signal, to improve uplink channel estimation performance of a network device. This improves coverage performance of a communication system.