The present technique relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method which allow the encoding efficiency to be improved. The image processing apparatus includes: a determination unit which determines whether neighboring motion information is available or unavailable, the neighboring motion information being motion information of a neighboring region located around a current region and being used to encode motion information of the current region to be processed; and an encoding unit which encodes the motion information of the current region by using available motion information of another neighboring region in place of the motion information of the neighboring region determined by the determination unit to be unavailable. The present disclosure can be applied to an image processing apparatus.