The present invention relates to a system and a method for video instant communication. The system comprises a sending terminal (100) and a receiving terminal (200), the sending terminal (100) comprises a video receiving module, a face detection module, a face tracking module, a coding module, and a network communication module, and the coding module codes face information in a video sequence through a first coding algorithm, and codes inhuman face information through a second coding algorithm. The present invention applies the face recognition technology, the face detection technology, and the face tracking technology in the video instant communication, the face information and the inhuman face information adopt different coding algorithms, the information quantity is effectively reduced after being coded, and a band width is reduced; further, the inhuman face information can also be discarded, the operation quantity of the band width is further reduced, and the quality of the video communication is increased; the face information can also adopt the special algorithm, the face information is highlighted, and the user experience is increased.