The present invention provides a downlink channel decoding method, a downlink information transmission method, a user equipment, and a base station. The downlink channel decoding method includes: determining, by a user equipment, a resource unit occupied by a DMRS; and decoding a downlink channel based on the DMRS transmitted on the resource unit. The present invention can enable different DMRS patterns to concurrently exist on an NCT carrier. In a downlink transmission process, a DMRS pattern used for downlink transmission is determined according to priorities of different channels and/or signals, which can ensure optimal performance of a high-priority channel and/or signal, and can further improve downlink transmission performance.