Short answer. On one of four events only: the death of either spouse, a decree of legal separation, annulment or a declaration that the marriage was void, or a judicial separation of property during the marriage. Nothing else ends it — not separation in fact, not agreement, not years apart.
What the law says
The conjugal partnership terminates: (1) Upon the death of either spouse; (2) When there is a decree of legal separation; (3) When the marriage is annulled or declared void; or (4) In case of judicial separation of property during the marriage
Family Code, Article 126 — When the Conjugal Partnership Terminates. Read the full provision →
The list is closed
Article 126 says the partnership terminates: (1) Upon the death of either spouse; (2) When there is a decree of legal separation; (3) When the marriage is annulled or declared void; or (4) In case of judicial separation of property during the marriage. Three of the four require a court, and the fourth requires a death. That is the shape of the rule: the regime you entered by marrying is not one you can leave by deciding to. It ends when the marriage ends, or when a judge says the property arrangement ends, and on no other occasion.
Termination is a date, and the date does work
Fixing the day the partnership ended is not a formality. Everything acquired up to that date belongs to the partnership and goes into the mass to be divided; everything after it does not. So a spouse's salary, a business's profits and any property bought in the months after a decree fall outside the accounting, while the same items a week earlier fall inside. Where the ground is death, the date is on the certificate. Where it is a court decree, the date is the one the decree carries, not the day the argument started.
Ending is not dividing
Termination stops the partnership from acquiring anything further; it does not distribute what is there. Liquidation is a separate exercise — inventory, reimbursements between the spouses, payment of the partnership's debts, return of exclusive property, and only then the division of the net remainder. Couples routinely treat a decree as the end of the matter and discover years later that nothing was ever liquidated, that the property is still held in common, and that dealing with it now requires reopening an accounting nobody kept records for. The two steps are often years apart, and the gap is where most of the difficulty accumulates.
What separation in fact does not do
None of the four grounds is satisfied by moving out. A couple who have lived apart for a decade, divided the furniture and stopped speaking are still under the same regime, and property either of them buys in that decade is still partnership property. The route out is a petition: judicial separation of property, which spouses may seek jointly or on a sufficient cause, and long separation in fact is itself one of the causes the Code recognises. If that is your situation, the question to bring to a lawyer is which ground you can actually prove.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Belinda Alexander vs. Spouses Jorge and Hilaria Escalona and Reygan Escalona, G.R. No. 256141, July 19, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Sps. Julieta B. Carlos and Fernando P. Carlos vs. Juan Cruz Tolentino, G.R. No. 234533, June 27, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →