This paper presents a comparative study of the combined series active and shunt passive power filter, using instantaneous real active and reactive power (p-q) and instantaneous active and reactive current component (id-iq) method. The p-q method has been proposed as the control method for the combined filter and gives satisfactory performance 2-3 while id-iq method was proven to give better performance for shunt active power filter in harmonic compensation 5. Two models of a power line with a nonlinear load using p-q and id-iq method are developed using MATLAB-Simulink SimPower System. Models are simulated for three different conditions of supply source; the balanced sinusoidal supply, unbalanced sinusoidal supply and balanced non-sinusoidal supply. The percentage of total harmonic distortion (%THD) of the output current is measured and the waveform is observed. Based on the result, it is verified that the id-iq control method gives a slightly better result for a distorted supply condition. However, both control method has same effectiveness to compensate the harmonic current when the supply is a normal balanced and sinusoidal. ©2007 IEEE.