Canadian Citizenship Application (CIT0002E) & Residency Form (CIT0407E) advice

[Savak]

Greetings

I am a little confused about one particular issue which i hope experienced individuals will be able to help me out with. A brief summary of my issue.

I immigrated to Canada and Landed as a permanent resident on April 4th, 2012. In the last 3 years i have made a total of 3 trips outside Canada totaling 51 days. Luckily for me, apparently the 4 year residency requirement will apparently come into effect on July 1st, 2015 on Canada day and based on my conversations with the immigration agents on the phone many times, they have assured that if my application (provided i am eligible) arrives in their office before July 1st, 2015 then i will be assessed according to the previous 3 year residency requirement.

Luckily in spite of my absences outside of Canada since i arrived on April 4th, 2012 i am presently meeting the residency requirements of 1095 days and am eligible to apply for citizenship. While i was filling out the Citizenship application form (CIT0002E) and the Residency Form (CIT0407E) i came across a few questions which have sort of confused me and i don't want to risk answering them incorrectly.

According to the Residency form applicants have to declare all their visits outside of Canada in the last 4 years from the date of the Citizenship application. If i plan to submit my application on June 3rd, 2015 then this means i have to list down all my trips outside of Canada in the last 4 years. The issue is that prior to landing in Canada as a PR on April 4th, 2012, i actually visited Canada on a Visit Visa from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011.

Even though i am comfortably meeting the 1095 day requirement based on my stay in Canada upon arriving as a PR on April 4th, 2012, i am confused and pondering whether i need to account for my stay in Canada from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 on the Residency Form (CIT0407E). If i include these days on the form, it will give me 6 additional days in Canada, i don't really need these 6 days as i am already meeting the 1095 requirements but i don't want to risk being penalized and my application being returned by the CIC. The only way i can account for the visit visa visit from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 is showing my departure from Canada from November 7th, 2011 to April 4th, 2012 for a total of 148-149 days.

Also on the Citizenship application (CIT0002E), there is a question "When did you first come to live in Canada?". Initially i was planning to write the date April 4th, 2012 which is also my PR date but if i am going to account for my Visit Visa visit from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 then i am confused whether i should write October 26th, 2011. I only visited Canada, i wasn't actually living here but my fears of messing up on the application is making me over-think this horribly.

I am definitely going to try and speak to a Call center agent about this tomorrow but i thought i would seek advice from people as well on this. Will be very grateful for people's insights.

Regards

 

[neutral]

It's very easy, you complicate for nothing. You need to indicate the last 4 years, period. And about the day you come to live, is the day you come as a resident. When you come as a tourist, legally, you were supposed to come temporarily to do tourism, not to live.

 

[thecoolguysam]

Rather than using cit0407(its manual process and is bit complicated) please use the online residence calculator (which is easy to use) to calculate your days for residency requirement:

https://eservices.cic.gc.ca/rescalc/resCalcStartNew.do

 

[dpenabill]

I immigrated to Canada and Landed as a permanent resident on April 4th, 2012. In the last 3 years i have made a total of 3 trips outside Canada totaling 51 days. Luckily for me, apparently the 4 year residency requirement will apparently come into effect on July 1st, 2015 on Canada day and based on my conversations with the immigration agents on the phone many times, they have assured that if my application (provided i am eligible) arrives in their office before July 1st, 2015 then i will be assessed according to the previous 3 year residency requirement.

Luckily in spite of my absences outside of Canada since i arrived on April 4th, 2012 i am presently meeting the residency requirements of 1095 days and am eligible to apply for citizenship. While i was filling out the Citizenship application form (CIT0002E) and the Residency Form (CIT0407E) i came across a few questions which have sort of confused me and i don't want to risk answering them incorrectly.

According to the Residency form applicants have to declare all their visits outside of Canada in the last 4 years from the date of the Citizenship application. If i plan to submit my application on June 3rd, 2015 then this means i have to list down all my trips outside of Canada in the last 4 years. The issue is that prior to landing in Canada as a PR on April 4th, 2012, i actually visited Canada on a Visit Visa from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011.

Even though i am comfortably meeting the 1095 day requirement based on my stay in Canada upon arriving as a PR on April 4th, 2012, i am confused and pondering whether i need to account for my stay in Canada from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 on the Residency Form (CIT0407E). If i include these days on the form, it will give me 6 additional days in Canada, i don't really need these 6 days as i am already meeting the 1095 requirements but i don't want to risk being penalized and my application being returned by the CIC. The only way i can account for the visit visa visit from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 is showing my departure from Canada from November 7th, 2011 to April 4th, 2012 for a total of 148-149 days.

Also on the Citizenship application (CIT0002E), there is a question "When did you first come to live in Canada?". Initially i was planning to write the date April 4th, 2012 which is also my PR date but if i am going to account for my Visit Visa visit from October 26th, 2011 to November 7th, 2011 then i am confused whether i should write October 26th, 2011. I only visited Canada, i wasn't actually living here but my fears of messing up on the application is making me over-think this horribly.

As already suggested by thecoolguysam, use the online residency calculator.

Use the online residency calculator if at all possible.

There are many reasons why using the online residency calculator is far better, rather than the "How to Calculate Residence" form (CIT 0407), and one of those reasons is there is far less room for confusion or error precisely of the sort you have encountered.

Among other key reasons: while there is no rule per se, it does appear that CIC personnel reviewing residency calculations seem to prefer the printout from the online residency calculator over the CIT 0407 form . . . this is probably because the arithmetic is automatic, part of the calculator's functionality, so what shows up in the # of days column is correct based on the dates entered, no need to check the math or count the days, it's all done automatically. In contrast, applicants can make errors (and many do) in counting the days when filling out CIT 0407, so for each of those entries the calculation of days needs to be checked.

And of course that is in turn among the biggest reasons to use the online residency calculator, to avoid the risk of making an error counting the days . . . and we all make mistakes, and mistakes in this are very, very easily made.

Note: The margin of error which makes the difference between a routine application and RQ is surprisingly small.

Beyond that, CIT 0407 is indeed confusing on its face. The part of the form for entering details about time outside Canada does indeed say to cover the full four years, not just since you first came to live in Canada. But then you have to separately do the calcuations in Section 1 and Section 2, section 1 for time in Canada since becoming a PR, section 2 for time in Canada prior to becoming a PR but still within the preceding four years.

Section 2 does not explicitly refer to being in Canada to live in Canada. So, in addition leaving it to the applicant to sort-out, from the table of reported travel, which absences were before or after landing, and separately adding up the number of days respectively, CIT 0407 fails to separate pre-landing (but still within four years) time in Canada after coming to Canada to live versus just visiting. Indeed, the form will include the visiting time in the calculation, even though technically it should not count (the half day credit is for time "resident in Canada").

There are real reasons why more than a few have become frustrated with CIC. (This particular area of confusion will disappear when the new requirements take effect . . . to be replaced by entirely new complications ripe for much confusion.)

There is no such confusion using the online residency calculator: you enter the date when you first came to Canada to live . . . and when you get to the part of the calculator for entering information about absences it will explicitly instruct you to list absences since the date you gave for coming to Canada to live.

And if you attempt to add an absence preceding the date you came to Canada to live the calculator will give you a warning (the warning will say you entered an absence outside the relevant four years, even if the dates were actually within four years . . . but since the dates are before you came to Canada to live, they are not within the relevant time period).

In other words, the online residency calculator not only walks you through the process of accounting for absences/trips, and does all the arithmetic/counting for you, it helps to avoid making a variety of other potential mistakes.

Indeed, if the applicant enters the information in the online calculator correctly, following the instructions, and enters all the dates accurately, completely reporting all trips, the online residency calculator is a for-sure accurate calculation. And CIC recognizes this as well, and trusts it . . . all they need to do is verify you accurately reported all travel.

Use the online residency calculator if at all possible.