There are problems associated with complex topologies, large numbers of devices, unbalanced capacitor voltages and high total standing voltage stresses in existing switched-capacitor based multilevel inverters. Thus a new six-level inverter based on a switched-capacitor is proposed. The proposed structure consists of six switches with a single DC voltage source and three floating capacitors. It is capable of producing a six-level output voltage waveform with a voltage boosting gain of 2.5 times. The voltages of the capacitors are constructively balanced because they are directly charged to fixed voltage by the input DC voltage source. The operating principle, PWM modulation strategy and circuit parameters of the proposed inverter are analyzed in detail. A comparative study between the proposed inverter and other existing multilevel inverter topologies is also discussed. Finally, a simulation model is established in Matlab software, and the results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed circuit. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61702182).