This paper presents two soft computing techniques, fuzzy logic and neural network, to design a new control scheme for switching a shunt active power filter (APF). This control scheme consists of three control loops, namely a voltage loop, current loop and reference generator. The reference current signal generated by this controller is used to generate gating pulses for APF switches. The reference generator is based on neural network or fuzzy logic. The performance of the proposed neural controller is evaluated and compared with a linear control scheme, incorporating a resonant selective linear reference generator. Simulations are carried out using Matlab Simulink and the results show that the proposed system is capable of compensating the harmonic current to a minimum level.