1. Meet the residency obligation
You must meet your residency obligation to keep your status. This means that in any 5-year period, you must have at least 730 days in which you're either:
- physically inside of Canada, or
- outside of Canada but still meeting certain legal conditions.
730 days is the same as 2 years. Any day you are physically in Canada counts towards your obligation. The days do not have to be one after another. Even part of a day counts as a full day.
Time spent outside Canada
Usually, only days when you're in Canada count towards your . But, in some situations, you can include time spent outside Canada.
With a Canadian citizen
You can include time you spent outside Canada if you were accompanying your Canadian citizen:
- or , or
- parent, if you were under age 22 and never had a spouse or common-law partner
In the law, the word accompany usually means that you're sharing a household with the person outside Canada.
Keep documents that prove you were together, for example:
- flight, travel, and hotel records
- employment or school records from where you were living
- a joint lease and shared utility bills
- other proof you lived together abroad like a local gym membership, receipts showing you both made purchases in the location, or photographs of you there together
Time outside Canada because of work
You can include time spent outside Canada if you were working as a full-time employee of:
- a Canadian business or organization
- the government of Canada or a province
You can also include time you were accompanying your spouse, common-law partner, or parent who was a permanent resident and working abroad as a full-time employee of:
- a Canadian business or organization
- the government of Canada or a province
But time spent with your parent only counts if you also were under age 22 and never had a spouse or common-law partner. Keep documents that prove you were together.
And there are more rules about when time spent working outside Canada counts.
If you want to use time spent outside Canada to meet your residency obligation, it's a best to get legal advice.