We study parity violation in (2+1)-dimensional gauge theories coupled to massive fermions. Using the ζ function regularization approach we evaluate the ground state fermion current in an arbitrary gauge field background, showing that it gets two different contributions which violate parity invariance and induce a Chern–Simons term in the gauge field effective action. One is related to the well-known classical parity breaking produced by a fermion mass term in three dimensions; the other, already present for massless fermions, is related to peculiarities of gauge-invariant regularization in odd-dimensional spaces.Facultad de Ciencias Exactas