The invention discloses a soft starting control method of a dual-active bridge DC converter applied to an intelligent power distribution network. According to the soft starting control method, a primary-side full bridge is unlocked, a secondary-side full bridge and closed-loop control of an external shift phase angle are shunted, the primary-side full bridge employs chopping control, a switch tubeQ3 and a switch tube Q4 are complementarily conducted at a duty ratio of 50%, the switch tube Q3 and the switch tube Q4 employs variable-duty ratio control, and the period of each switch is increasedat a certain step; when a secondary-side voltage is raised enough to drive the switch tubes and the duty ratios of a switch tube Q1 and a switch tube Q2 both are increased to 0.99, the secondary-sidefull bridge and the closed-loop control of the external shift phase angle are unlocked; and when an output voltage reaches a rated value, a load is switched, the output voltage is stable, and the starting process is completed. By the soft starting control method, the current overshoot of the dual-active bridge DC converter during the starting process is effectively prevented, the positive and negative symmetry of the current is ensured, the current-resistant requirement of the switch tubes is reduced, the cost is reduced, a magnetic biasing phenomenon of a transformer is prevented, and the capacity, the volume and the cost of the transformer are reduced.