The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for processing a bearer. The method includes performing depth packet inspection DPI processing on a traffic flow of a service according to a preset layer-7 protocol type matching rule. Alternatively, shallow packet inspection SPI processing is performed on a traffic flow of a service according to a preset layer-3 or layer-4 protocol type matching rule so as to obtain a DPI/SPI processing result. According to the DPI/SPI result and the preset matching rule, a service quality attribute parameter of the service is determined. The method further includes determining whether the service quality attribute parameter is the same as a service quality attribute parameter of an existing bearer, and if different, creating a dedicated bearer for the service.