To provide both a melt spinning apparatus for extremely prolonging the cleaning cycle of a spinneret and stabilizing spinning for many hours by sealing the face of the spinneret with an inert gas, and a melt spinning method.

This melt spinning apparatus is equipped with a sealing ring 11 composed of a ring-shaped member stuck fast to the lower part of a spinneret holder 6 so as to seal a zone right under a spinneret 5 with an inert gas. The sealing ring 11 satisfies a relation of the equation 0.1≤L1 (the thickness of the sealing ring)/D1 (the inner diameter of the sealing ring) ≤0.4. The inner wall face of the apparatus is equipped with a slit plate 10 having inert gas jetting holes 9 arranged at ≤15 mm distance between the hole so as to form a ring-shaped space in 0.5 mm to 5 mm width opening upward between the inner wall of the sealing ring and the slit plate.