A carrier switching method, comprising: determining, by a base station, according to carrier switching capability information of user equipment, UE, having no carrier aggregation capability, a carrier switching policy according to which the UE performs carrier switching, wherein the carrier switching capability information of the UE comprises at least one piece of the following information: information about a quantity of carriers supported by the UE for carrier switching, information about a carrier frequency band separately supported by the UE for uplink and/or downlink transmissions and information about a carrier switching type supported by the UE; and sending, by the base station, carrier switching indication information to the UE, wherein the carrier switching indication information is used for indicating the carrier switching policy, so that the UE performs carrier switching between at least two carriers according to the carrier switching policy; wherein the carrier switching indication information is carried in downlink control information, DCI, sent by the base station on a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, or an enhanced physical downlink control channel, ePDCCH; characterized in that the method further comprises: scrambling, by the base station, the DCI using two different cell identifiers corresponding to a target carrier, wherein using a first cell identifier instructs the UE to perform either uplink carrier switching or downlink carrier switching to the target carrier and wherein using a second cell identifier instructs the UE to perform both uplink carrier switching and downlink carrier switching to the target carrier. determining, by a base station, according to carrier switching capability information of user equipment, UE, having no carrier aggregation capability, a carrier switching policy according to which the UE performs carrier switching, wherein the carrier switching capability information of the UE comprises at least one piece of the following information: information about a quantity of carriers supported by the UE for carrier switching, information about a carrier frequency band separately supported by the UE for uplink and/or downlink transmissions and information about a carrier switching type supported by the UE; and sending, by the base station, carrier switching indication information to the UE, wherein the carrier switching indication information is used for indicating the carrier switching policy, so that the UE performs carrier switching between at least two carriers according to the carrier switching policy; wherein the carrier switching indication information is carried in downlink control information, DCI, sent by the base station on a physical downlink control channel, PDCCH, or an enhanced physical downlink control channel, ePDCCH; characterized in that the method further comprises: scrambling, by the base station, the DCI using two different cell identifiers corresponding to a target carrier, wherein using a first cell identifier instructs the UE to perform either uplink carrier switching or downlink carrier switching to the target carrier and wherein using a second cell identifier instructs the UE to perform both uplink carrier switching and downlink carrier switching to the target carrier. scrambling, by the base station, the DCI using two different cell identifiers corresponding to a target carrier, wherein using a first cell identifier instructs the UE to perform either uplink carrier switching or downlink carrier switching to the target carrier and wherein using a second cell identifier instructs the UE to perform both uplink carrier switching and downlink carrier switching to the target carrier.