A user recognition apparatus includes: a visible-light image processing unit configured to acquire a visible-light image using a visible-light camera; an infrared-light image processing unit configured to acquire an infrared-light image using an infrared-light camera; a threshold value processing unit configured to remove a background of the infrared-light image using a threshold value, and generate a clipped infrared-light image; an optical flow processing unit configured to calculate an optical flow based on the clipped infrared-light image and the visible-light image, and generate a clipped visible-light image based on the calculated optical flow; and a visible light processing unit configured to recognize a user based on the clipped visible-light image.