Embodiments of the present invention provide an uplink control information transmission method, user equipment, and a base station. In a first uplink demodulation reference signal (UL DMRS) pattern, resource elements (Res) in one orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol in an uplink subframe are used to carry the UL DMRS. The method includes: mapping, by user equipment (UE), uplink control information (UCI) to REs in the uplink subframe according to the first UL DMRS pattern, where an OFDM symbol in which the REs carrying the UCI are located is adjacent to the OFDM symbol in which the REs carrying the UL DMRS are located; and sending, by the UE to a base station, the uplink subframe that carries the UCI.