The invention provides a data processing method and a terminal, and relates to the technical field of communication. The data processing method comprises the steps that at least one hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process allocated to an unscheduled resource is acquired; and when data transmission is conducted by means of the first HARQ process in the at least one HARQ process, data in a cache of the first HARQ process is processed, wherein the data is processed through at least one of the modes of wiping the data in the cache, retaining the data in the cache and updating the data in the cache. According to the scheme, by processing the data in the cache of the HARQ process adopted by the unscheduled resource and then sending the data to a base station by means of the HARQ process,the 5G data transmission mode is improved, therefore, the reliability and the validity of data transmission are guaranteed, and the reliability of network communication is guaranteed.