Hi there,
Thank you for sharing your question and situation with us.
To maintain permanent residency status in Canada, you must have spent two years (730 days) of the last five years in Canada from the date of examination.
When is the date of examination?
It is either when:
1. A permanent resident of Canada is entering Canada. The border officer will conduct an “examination” to determine whether the person should keep their PR status or not; and/or
2. The date of signature on a PR Card renewal application.
If you plan to enter Canada on January 30, 2023, that will be your date of examination. Upon entry, there are two ways a Canadian border officer is required to calculate your days of physical presence in Canada based on your circumstances:
1. You have been a Permanent Resident for 5 years or less. In that case, a border officer will look backwards from your date of examination to calculate if you already have 730 days of physical presence in Canada. If you do not, the border officer is then allowed to look forward to the end of your first 5-year period to see if you will be able to meet your 730-day physical presence requirement.
2. If you have been a permanent resident for five years or longer, a Canadian border officer is only allowed to look backwards on your date of examination to see if you meet the physical presence test. From the day you enter Canada, the border officer will determine if you have spent 730 days physically present in Canada over the past five years.
In this situation, a border officer cannot look forward to calculate if you will meet the requirement. They are only able to look backwards to determine if you already have enough days of physical presence or not.
It is important to note that the five-year period of your PR card’s validity is purely incidental and has nothing to do with the physical presence requirement. It is a travel document. What is calculated upon arrival is not whether two of five years of your PR card’s validity have been spent in Canada, but whether you have been physically present in Canada for at least two of the past five years from the date of entry to Canada (which is the date of examination).
Some people mistakenly believe that they must spend 2 years of physical presence in Canada for the validity of the PR Card and this is not correct - and a person could lose their status if they interpret it this way.
In addition to the above, the 730 days of physical presence do not have to be continuous. A few exemptions to this requirement are set out below that may or may not apply to your situation. Time abroad can count towards your permanent residency status in the following cases:
1. You work outside Canada full-time for
a) A Canadian business or organization, or
b) The Canadian federal, provincial, or territorial government.
2. You travel with a spouse or common-law partner who is either
a) A Canadian citizen, or
b) A permanent resident working outside Canada full-time for a Canadian business or the Canadian federal, provincial, or territorial government.
3. You are a dependent child and travel with your parent, who is either
a) A Canadian citizen, or
b) A permanent resident who works outside Canada full-time for a Canadian business or organization or the Canadian federal,
provincial, or territorial government.
Generally speaking, a Canadian company cannot be created for the purpose of maintaining status. A Canadian company for these purposes should be a company that operates a payroll, has full-time employees who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and has been in business for at least 1-2 years. Canadian companies should not be created for the purposes of maintaining a permanent residency status as they are unlikely to fulfill the requirement in the exemption.
If the border officer determines that you have not met or will not be able to meet your physical presence requirement, your PR status will be taken away and a section 44 IRPR report will be written against you. You will have 30 days to appeal the decision.
You may wish to speak with a qualified immigration lawyer to assist you with any necessary application or provide more detailed information. Steps to Justice offers more information about permanent residency obligations that may be useful to you here; “Do permanent residents lose their status if they spend time outside Canada?”.
We hope that the information we provided was helpful to you. Please let us know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Your Settlement.Org team
Disclaimer:
This document does not contain legal advice. This document was prepared with the assistance of PBSC University of Toronto law student volunteers. PBSC volunteers are not lawyers and they are not authorized to provide legal advice. This document contains general discussion of certain legal and related issues only. If you require legal advice, please consult with a lawyer.