The invention discloses a heavy metal recovery process for treating low-concentration plating heavy metal wastewater. The process comprises the following steps: pumping unpretreated low-concentrationheavy metal wastewater into membrane treatment equipment by a pump, wherein the wastewater contains heavy metal ions, COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), NH4 and complexes, and the filtering precision of the membrane is 0.01 micron; removing suspended solids, colloid and organic matters, enabling membrane equipment effluent to enter heavy metal adsorption equipment to adsorb copper ions, washing out heavy metal ions by acid regeneration after the adsorbed filter material is saturated, enabling regenerated liquid to enter metal electrolysis equipment to be electrolyzed into sheet metal to be recovered after the ion concentration reaches a certain number, returning the electrolyzed regenerated liquid to recycle, adding a new acid to supplement when the concentration is not enough, regulating the pH value of the adsorption equipment effluent to 7-8, and performing biochemical treatment to remove the heavy metals. According to the wastewater treatment process, since the heavy metals are removedby adopting an adsorption method, the amount of heavy metal sludge is reduced, the sludge treatment cost is saved, and valuable metals in the wastewater are recovered, so that recycling is realized, and the whole wastewater treatment cost is saved.