A method and a terminal device for cell reselection are provided. The method is applied to a terminal device. A connection between the terminal device and a network device is in a disconnected state, and the network device retains context information of the terminal device, the context information being used to establish a connection between the terminal device and the network device. The method comprises: when the terminal device triggers a cell reselection operation, determining a serving cell of the terminal device according to a configuration of an initial paging area of the terminal device.