Systems and methods for beam failure recovery (BFR) are disclosed herein. A user equipment (UE) receives downlink (DL) reference signal(s) on corresponding beam(s) from a base station. The UE performs beam failure detection (BFD) on such beams used for user data to determine whether a beam failure has occurred, and candidate beam detection (CBD) on such beams not used for user data to identify candidate beams for recovering from the beam failure. The BFD and the CBD are based on both uplink (UL) channel performance considerations and DL channel performance considerations, as determined using the DL reference signal(s), such that a beam failure may be determined in the UL, the DL, or both, and a candidate beam may be identified for UL, DL, or both. The UE sends a beam failure recovery request BFRQ with this information to the base station, and the system changes beams accordingly.