A method and apparatus for supporting scalability for motion vectors in scalable video coding are provided. The motion estimation apparatus includes a motion estimation module searching for a variable block size and a motion vector that minimize a cost function for each layer according to predetermined pixel accuracy, a sampling module upsampling an original frame when the pixel accuracy is less than a pixel size, and before searching for a motion vector in a layer having a lower resolution than the original frame downsampling the original frame into the low resolution, a motion residual module calculating a residual between motion vectors found in the respective layers, and a rearrangement module rearranging the residuals between the found motion vectors and the found variable block size information using significance obtained from a searched lower layer. Accordingly, true motion scalability can be achieved to improve adaptability to changing network circumstances.