a parallel cut-cell algorithm is described to solve the free boundary problem of the grad-shafranov equation. the algorithm reformulates the free-boundary problem in an irregular bounded domain and its important aspects include a searching algorithm for the magnetic axis and separatrix, a surface integral along the irregular boundary to determine the boundary values, an approach to optimize the coil current based on a targeting plasma shape, picard iterations with aitken's acceleration for the resulting nonlinear problem and a cartesian grid embedded boundary method to handle the complex geometry. the algorithm is implemented in parallel using a standard domain-decomposition approach and a good parallel scaling is observed. numerical results verify the accuracy and efficiency of the free-boundary grad-shafranov solver.