Disclosed is a method for performing handoff by a Mobile Station (MS) in a Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) communication system including a serving Base Station (BS) and at least one neighbor BS adjacent to the serving BS, the serving BS currently providing a service to the MS. The method including receiving physical layer information for communication from said at least one neighbor BS by the serving BS; combining by the serving BS the received physical layer information of said at least one neighbor BS, inserting the physical layer information into an advertisement message, and transmitting the advertisement message to the MS; and receiving by the MS the advertisement message, and performing a handoff according to the physical layer information of said at least one neighbor BS included in the advertisement message when the handoff occurs.