Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for receiving D2D discovery information and an apparatus. The method for receiving D2D discovery information includes: sending, by an upper layer of a radio resource control RRC layer of a D2D communication device, a first instruction to a physical layer of the D2D communication device, where the first instruction is used to instruct the physical layer to switch from a D2D sleep state to a D2D listening state; and receiving, by the physical layer of the D2D communication device, the first instruction and switching from the D2D sleep state to the D2D listening state according to the first instruction, to listen to D2D discovery information. This reduces power consumption of the D2D communication device and prolongs a standby time of the D2D communication device.