The accuracy of online residence calculator

[newheart]

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking it's about time to apply for citizenship, so I took a test online using the residence calculator to determine my eligibility. Here is my info:

became PR: 2012-10-17;
application date (today): 2015-02-09;
so the four-year start date is 2011-02-09.
days of absence before PR: 56 days;
days of absence after PR: 79 days.

With the instructions on CIC, I could manually calculate that I now have 1046 days, 49 days short from being eligible (2015-03-30).

However, the residence calculator told me to apply 2015-05-19, and the residence days it gave me is also 1046 days. But that's 98 days from today.

So my question is, does the online calculator automatically assume that my stay/absence in the unknown future is 50-50? Another more important question: if I don't leave Canada from now to 2015-03-30, am I eligible to apply by then?

Thank you very much in advance for answering my question~

 

[thecoolguysam]

Welcome to the forum!

As far as I know the online calculator is most accurate.
It will automatically tell you when you would be eligibile.

Also, if you are in doubt, please use the following link to manually calculate:

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/kits/citizen/CIT0407E.pdf

You need to exactly mention when you were away and when you would be away in future within that 4 years period. You need to specify the time.

 

[dpenabill]

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking it's about time to apply for citizenship, so I took a test online using the residence calculator to determine my eligibility. Here is my info:

became PR: 2012-10-17;
application date (today): 2015-02-09;
so the four-year start date is 2011-02-09.
days of absence before PR: 56 days;
days of absence after PR: 79 days.

With the instructions on CIC, I could manually calculate that I now have 1046 days, 49 days short from being eligible (2015-03-30).

However, the residence calculator told me to apply 2015-05-19, and the residence days it gave me is also 1046 days. But that's 98 days from today.

So my question is, does the online calculator automatically assume that my stay/absence in the unknown future is 50-50? Another more important question: if I don't leave Canada from now to 2015-03-30, am I eligible to apply by then?

Thank you very much in advance for answering my question~

As thecoolguysam stated, all indications are that the computations done by the online Residency Calculator are accurate. (The accuracy of the final calculation itself, however, is dependent on the accuracy of the information entered into the calculator.)

Without attempting to do the calculation myself, or the arithmetic, I suspect you are running into losing credit for days that fall outside the four years that count. For example, if you apply on May 19th, your four years goes back to 2011-05-19, not 2011-02-09, so any credit this calculation included for the time between 2011-02-09 and 2011-05-19 you lose, and have to make up. It takes around two days of additional presence to make up for each day of lost credit (for pre-landing days) . . . I do not recall the precise arithmetic, but it is just arithmetic.

In other words, while you are approximately only 50 days short of when you should apply, it will take considerably more than 50 more days of presence in Canada to reach the 1095 day threshold.

Note: it is probably best to give it at least a few more days and have a margin before you apply, especially since you are relying on pre-landing credits. You will also want to follow the news about when the new residency requirements are coming into effect. If you fail to get a complete application submitted by the day before that happens, it will the end of 2016 before you are eligible for citizenship (or later if you travel outside Canada in the meantime).

 

[newheart]

Thank you very much, guys. I got it now. It was my mistake before. Thanks for the tips too.