A method and an apparatus for forwarding a packet, where a first network virtualization edge (NVE) receives a first packet sent by a first tenant end system (TES), where a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of the first packet is an IP address of a second TES, a destination media access control (MAC) address of the first packet is a gateway MAC address corresponding to the first NVE. The first NVE acquires an access virtual network identifier (VN ID) and a layer 3 virtual private network (VPN) instance identifier of the first TES, and searches a routing and forwarding table, to obtain an entry corresponding to the IP address of the second TES. Then the first NVE encapsulates the first packet into a network virtualization overlays (NVO3) packet according to the entry, and forwards the NVO3 packet to a second NVE to forward to the second TES.