The present disclosure provides a method and a device for monitoring a radio link. In the method, a user terminal monitors a cell specific reference signal (CRS) and a channel state indication reference signal (CSI-RS), and judges whether to initiate radio resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment according to the CRS and the CSI-RS. The device provided in an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a monitoring unit and a judging unit. By applying the technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present disclosure, monitoring of the radio link can be more accurate, and RRC connection re-establishment can be performed in time, to reduce occurrence of misjudgments, thereby improving the experience on the user terminal.