Short answer. Permanently, in only three cases: the death of the parents, the death of the child, or the emancipation of the child. Everything else that ends it — adoption, the appointment of a general guardian, a declaration of abandonment, a judgment divesting a parent — sits in a separate list and can be revived.

What the law says

Parental authority terminates permanently: (1) Upon the death of the parents; (2) Upon the death of the child; or (3) Upon emancipation of the child.

Family Code, Article 228 — Permanent Termination of Parental Authority. Read the full provision →

The three permanent endings

Article 228 is exhaustive about what ends parental authority for good: parental authority terminates permanently: (1) Upon the death of the parents; (2) Upon the death of the child; or (3) Upon emancipation of the child. The word permanently is doing deliberate work, because the Code elsewhere describes endings that are not permanent at all. Two of the three are events nobody chooses. The third — emancipation — is the ordinary route by which almost every case actually ends, and the only one a family can plan around.

Emancipation is the usual answer

For most children, authority ends because they reach the age at which the law treats them as emancipated. That age is fixed by a separate provision of the Family Code as amended by later legislation, so read it in its current form rather than relying on what the original Code said or on what an older relative remembers. The practical point is that emancipation arrives by operation of law on a birthday. Nothing has to be applied for, and no parent's agreement or objection changes the date it happens.

What ending authority does not end

Authority and obligation are separate things, and families routinely assume the second dies with the first. The duty of support answers to its own title of the Code, where Article 201 fixes the amount in proportion to the resources or means of the giver and to the necessities of the recipient — a rule that does not depend on the recipient still being a minor. So the end of parental authority settles who decides for the child. It does not by itself settle who pays for what, which is a question worth asking separately.

Ended, suspended, or merely displaced

Before treating authority as gone, identify which provision is being invoked. Article 229 lists terminations that operate unless subsequently revived by a final judgment — adoption, appointment of a general guardian, judicial declaration of abandonment, a judgment divesting the party of authority, or a declaration of absence or incapacity. Article 230 suspends authority on conviction of a crime carrying civil interdiction, with automatic reinstatement afterwards. Article 232 deprives permanently where the child has been subjected to sexual abuse. Only Article 228 ends it as a matter of course.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.