“Staying eligible” until oath ceremony
- Thread starter ownio
- Start date
Allow me to ask a question regarding "staying eligible for residency" my question is that what if I leave Canada for work purpose right after submitting my citizenship application and stay out of country up till the oath ceremony- only come back for citizenship test and leave again- given that I still have a valid PR because for a long time to go cause I just renewed my PR before applying for citizenship. So the question is ..does this create a problem for me for my citizenship applicationI mean will IRCC stop me from taking oath and stop my citizenship application if they know that I was out of country for the last 2 years?
you have to maintain PR status until you get your citizenship, which implies you have to be physically be in Canada for 3 years out of the last five years. As long as you're in that range you're still eligible for citizenship even if you were outside of Canada for an extensive period of time.
Also, you don't need to be in Canada to take a test. You can notify them that you'll be taking the test outside of Canada and that would suffice. However for the oath you have to be on Canadian soil. Hope it helps.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought maintaining PR needed 2/5 years and not 3/5 as you mention?
Yes it is 2/5 years. in https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=911&top=5, if you click on link (your Permanent Resident (PR) status) in first bullet point, the page that opens is the page that talks about maintaining PR status. In that page, it is mentioned "you must have been in Canada for at least 730 days during the last five years" in 'Time Lived in Canada' section.