The disclosure relates to a fifth generation (5G) or sixth generation (6G) communication system to support a data transmission rate higher than before. Disclosed is a method performed by a first user equipment (UE), including obtaining configuration information including information on a threshold used for identifying, by the first UE performing a UE-to-UE (U2U) relay operation, whether to perform transmission of a second message based on a first message received by the first UE from a second UE, receiving, from the second UE, a first discovery message including information on the second UE, identifying, based on reference signal received power (RSRP) measured based on communication with the second UE and the threshold, whether to perform transmission of the second message based on the received first discovery message, and performing, based on a result of the identification, transmission of the second message based on the received first discovery message.