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Question about physical calculator for citizenship application

tammy_z

Star Member
Sep 4, 2020
52
1
I have the following questions regarding the physical calculator:
  • I know that the the physical calculator covers absences during the eligibility period. In my case, based on the date I am applying, the eligibility period starts in 1 July 2016. I left Canada before this date (November 2015) for one year. So when filling the ‘from’ and ‘to’ dates of absences from Canada, what should the date left Canada on the first absence be. Should it be the same date as the eligibility period start date or the date I left Canada which is before the eligibility date/the start date on the physical calculator?
  • According to the instructions in the physical calculator “if you visited more than one country during the same absence, list the first country in the destination and list the other countries in the reason field”. When highlighting the other countries in the reason field, should I also include the reason for visit for each? when I tried doing that I get an error that the number of characters is not enough.
 

icykool23

Star Member
Dec 11, 2016
188
88
You are only required to mention absences within the eligibility period. If your eligibility period is from 1-July-2016 to 1-Jul-2021 then absence should be entered from 1-July-2016 to your return date.

The reason field has character limit of 400 so you may be exceeding it; you can mention vacation and/or business trip etc as applicable and cover a few places at once instead of repeating again and again.

Note: I tried entering older date and it counts all days as absence going beyond eligibility period dates. So, I looked again and it clearly mentioned "only absences during the eligibility period"
 

tammy_z

Star Member
Sep 4, 2020
52
1
You are only required to mention absences within the eligibility period. If your eligibility period is from 1-July-2016 to 1-Jul-2021 then absence should be entered from 1-July-2016 to your return date.

The reason field has character limit of 400 so you may be exceeding it; you can mention vacation and/or business trip etc as applicable and cover a few places at once instead of repeating again and again.

Note: I tried entering older date and it counts all days as absence going beyond eligibility period dates. So, I looked again and it clearly mentioned "only absences during the eligibility period"
Thank you so much.. I was worried that the listing the date I left Canada as the eligibility period from date and not the actual date I left Canada is considered a false representation of dates.
 

icykool23

Star Member
Dec 11, 2016
188
88
Thank you so much.. I was worried that the listing the date I left Canada as the eligibility period from date and not the actual date I left Canada is considered a false representation of dates.
The website states the following:

Only the five (5) years immediately before the date of your application are considered for calculating the physical presence requirement. So, should be fine in my opinion.

I just tried dummy numbers with eligibility period of 2016-04-05 and 2021-04-04 and entered absence of 2016-04-01 to 2016-04-30 and got the following message:

  • An absence you have entered is partially or completely outside the relevant five-year period. Please check that the dates are correct.