The invention relates to a microwave shaft furnace direct reduction process adopting pellets and coal powder. According to the process, direct reduced iron is produced from raw material pellets and external matched material coal powder in a continuous microwave shaft furnace, selection heating, rapid heating, volume heating, activated metallurgical chemical reaction and other features of the microwave are fully utilized, gasification of fixed carbon is accelerated, and iron oxide is further reduced, so that the reduction temperature is lowered and the reaction time is shortened. The coal powder can serve as both a reducing agent and a heating element in the process, a gas-solid-heat exchange step is simplified, energy is saved and emission is reduced. The process contains low free oxygen content, and can produce CO with high purity of 95% or above; and the process is compact in structure, high in metallization degree, which is 94-98%, low in carbon content, which is less than 0.2%, andis low in quality requirements on coal powder, thereby being an environment-friendly iron making process.