The performance and mechanism of virus removal by microfiltration with coagulation pretreatment were investigated. We confirmed the unexpectedly high performance of virus removal for two types of ceramic membrane system: a positive pressure-driven dead-end filtration with inside-out configuration and a vacuum pressure-driven dead-end immersed filtration with outside-in configuration. Virus removals by both systems were more than 7 logs, although the size of the tested Qβ virus (23 nm) was much smaller than the membrane nominal pore size of 100 nm. The virus inactivation by the addition of the coagulant (PACl) and the virus adsorption onto the floc retained on the membrane surface mainly contributed the virus removal. No virus accumulation in the retentate was observed, possibly due to the virus inactivation by the coagulant.