transformer said:
My question is do days away count as double? Do I have to wait an extra 40 days or an extra 80 days?
As others have said, the residence calculator is your friend. Absences before PR do not "count" as double, however, it is often the case that you need to wait double the number of days to make up for those absences. To illustrate why this happens, let's simplify the rule, instead of saying 3 years out of 4, let's say 3 days out of 4. Now, imagine that you had one absence and just became a PR.
1/2 [ 1/2 0 1/2 1/2 | ]
Each number represents how much a day is worth towards citizenship, with [ ] denoting the last 4 days, and "|" being when you became PR. As you can see, in this instance you have 1/2+ 0 + 1/2+1/2 = 1.5 days, you would be a day and a half short. So, let's wait until tomorrow:
1/2 1/2 [1/2 0 1/2 | 1 ]
As you can see, you gained 1 day, but you lost half a day that dropped out of the 4-days window. Now you have 1 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 2 days, you are still short by a day -- you "gained" only half a day. Similarly, the day after that,
1/2 1/2 1/2 [ 0 1/2 | 1 1 ]
you would have 2.5 days. Again, you gained only half a day. But, the day after,
1/2 1/2 1/2 0 [ 1/2 | 1 1 1 ]
Now the one that dropped was the "0", so you didn't "lose" anything, and gained a full day. Now you have 3.5 days, and are eligible, at PR + 3 days. As you can see, how many days you "earn" after PR depends not only on how much you traveled, but also on when you traveled. A day away very close to the start of the 4-year period will affect you very little; an absence very close to the right side of the interval will affect you the most.
If your absences were like:
1/2 [ 0 1/2 1/2 1/2 | ]
you would be eligible at PR+2 days, the absence would not affect you at all. However, if your absence had been after becoming PR, like in:
1/2 [ 1/2 1/2 1/2 | 0 ]
it would hit you the hardest and delay your eligibility until PR+4 days: 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 | [0 1 1 1]
Yes, the calculations get messy... therefore, use the calculator!