PR residency calculator (730 days in 5 years)

How the count works

The PR Portal asks for every absence in the past five years, or since you became a permanent resident if that was less than five years ago. The calculator uses the same period, ending today.²

1. Enter the date you became a PR. It is on your confirmation of permanent residence (COPR), your Record of Landing, or the back of your PR card.
2. Add each trip outside Canada: the day you left, the day you came back, where you were and why.
3. Read the totals. The calculator counts the full days between each departure and return, keeps only the days inside the period, and adds them up.

You get the three totals the portal asks for: all days outside Canada, days outside for reasons A, B or C, and days outside excluding A, B and C. In the portal’s words, if your time outside Canada excluding A, B and C is less than 1,095 days, you appear to meet the residency requirements; at 1,095 days or more, you may not meet them.²

The portal counts from the other side: 730 days is two years in Canada out of five, 1,095 days is three years away. If you became a PR less than five years ago, the calculator also shows how many more days outside Canada (excluding A, B and C) your entries leave before the end of your first five years.

Each trip is then formatted as a row of the portal’s absences table, most recent first, so you can copy it across.

Rebuild your trip dates from your own records

What counts as a day in Canada

• The day you leave and the day you come back count as days in Canada. Only the full days in between are days outside.
• A same-day trip is not an absence. If you leave Canada and come back the same day, you don’t list it at all.²

Some days abroad count as days in Canada. The portal calls them reasons A, B and C: A, working full time outside Canada for a Canadian business or the public service of Canada or a province; B, accompanying your spouse, common-law partner or parent who is a Canadian citizen; C, accompanying your spouse, common-law partner or parent who is a permanent resident working full time outside Canada for a Canadian business or public service.³

Every other day outside Canada counts as a day away: holidays, family visits, studying abroad, or work for an employer that is not a Canadian business. List A, B and C trips too, with their reason; the calculator counts them separately.

Count your days: what counts and what doesn’t

If you’re short of 730 days

Don’t round up and don’t leave trips out. When you consent in the application, IRCC can compare your list with border entry and exit records.

The PR card form lets you apply anyway and explain the humanitarian and compassionate grounds for keeping your status. An IRCC officer decides; the law asks them to take into account the best interests of any child directly affected.³

Short of 730 days? Humanitarian and compassionate grounds