We aimed to investigate the indirect effects of authoritarian parenting on academic procrastination through various dimensions of perfectionism, including concern over mistakes, doubts about one’s actions, high personal standards, and organisation. We conducted a survey of 743 college students in China to collect information on perceived authoritarian parenting, perfectionism, and academic procrastination. Social learning theory guided our exploration of whether perfectionism mediated the link between authoritarian parenting and academic procrastination. The results of structural equation modelling showed that among perfectionism dimensions, only concern over mistakes mediated the association between perceived authoritarian parenting and academic procrastination. Authoritarian parenting was positively associated with concern about one’s mistakes and high personal standards. Concern over mistakes was positively associated with academic procrastination, whereas personal standard and organisation were associated negatively with academic procrastination.