Embodiments of this application provide a scheduling request processing method and a terminal device. The scheduling request processing method includes: determining, by a terminal device, whether there is a regular BSR associated with a first logical channel that is triggered and has not been canceled; and if a regular BSR associated with the first logical channel is triggered and has not been canceled, and the terminal device has no uplink resource available to transmit data of the first logical channel, and a first timer of the terminal device is not running, triggering, by the terminal device, an SR, where the first timer is configured to delay transmission of the SR.