A novel unidirectional three-phase three-level rectifier based on a soft switching technology comprises a unidirectional three-level rectifying loop, a resonant circuit, a buffer loop, a voltage sampling circuit, a current sampling circuit, a zero-crossing comparison circuit, a DSP control module and a PWM drive circuit, wherein the unidirectional three-phase three-level rectifying loop is composed of three rectifying bridge arms including six power switch tubes, so that the number of elements is effectively reduced, the structure is simplified, and the cost is reduced. The resonant loop is composed of a resonant inductor, a clamping capacitor, an auxiliary switch and the like, zero-voltage switching-on of main switches can be achieved, and switching loss and switching noise are effectively reduced. And the buffer loop is composed of six capacitors connected in parallel with the main switches, so that the turn-off process of the main switches can be softer. By the adoption of the structure, a double closed-loop control mode is adopted, a control method combining PI control and SVPWM is adopted for a current inner loop and a voltage outer loop, and therefore harmonic waves are effectively restrained, and alternating-current-side current sine, voltage stable output and grid-side unit power factor control are achieved.