This application relates to the field of communications technologies, and discloses example polar coding methods and apparatus, so as to improve accuracy of a reliability order of polarized channels. One example method includes determining a sequence used to code to-be-coded bits, and performing polar coding on the to-be-coded bits by using the sequence to obtain coded bits, where the sequence is used to represent a reliability order of N polarized channels, where N is a mother code length of a polar code, and wherein N is a positive integer power of 2.