How the calculator counts
- Add trips, stays or both. Add your trips outside Canada, or your stays in Canada with Canada as the place. With trips only, every other day is a day in Canada. Once you add a stay in Canada, only the days you've added count up to today, so add them all.
- Only whole days abroad are absences. As in IRCC's own calculator, the days you leave and return count as days in Canada.
- Days before permanent residence count at half. Add the date you came to Canada as a student, worker or protected person; those days count at half, up to 365.
- Your earliest date is worked out. It assumes you stay in Canada from today, apart from the trips you've planned.
- Other requirements aren't checked. Tax filing for 3 of the 5 years, language and the knowledge test are up to you, and so is the narrow public-service credit for time abroad.
The citizenship presence rule
You need 1,095 days physically in Canada within the 5 years before you apply. Time before permanent residence counts at half a day each, capped at 365 credited days, and ordinary time abroad doesn't count at all.
Keeping your PR status
Until you're a citizen, your permanent residence has its own test: 730 days in Canada in any 5 years. It's easier to meet and counts some time abroad, but losing PR status ends your path to citizenship.