A handoff method and apparatus for a terminal based on efficient set management. A pilot search rate for base stations of a neighbor set is increased, thereby preventing a failure to perform a necessary idle handoff or a failure to receive a paging message for a call connection. A terminal checks if it is in an idle state or in a traffic state, and measures the pilot energy of the BS of the active set and the pilot energy of a BS of the neighbor set with different pilot measurement patterns according to the checked state. The terminal measures the pilot of the BS of the active set and the pilots of at least one BS of the neighbor set while in the idle state. The terminal in the idle state operates in a sleep mode upon reception of information indicating that there is no paging channel, thereby minimizing its power consumption.