Question about residence calculation

hey all.. i think i am goin to be eligible for citizenship soon.. but just couple of question are bothering me. first is that what is differece between basic residence and physical presence. I m qualified for basic residence but not for physical residence. and also does visits to US count in this bcoz when you cross the border, neither US or Canadian ppl stamp your passport. thanks in advance.

As per the rules, both physical and basic residence have to be met.
Use the online calculator, and declare all trips out of the country, and it will tell you the date you will be eligible to apply.

Failing that if you apply without being qualified, you will:

-probably receive the RQ (residency questionaire) which will delay your application
-receive a refusal from judge due to not meeting physical residence AFTER the delay
-waste 2-3 years of your lifetime WAITING
-Receive greater scrutiny the next time you apply (after previous refusal)

It is your decision.

Somewhat ditto what has been said.

My version:

Whatever the terms used, while the statute itself as well as CIC versions of the requirement refer to "residing" or "living" in Canada for at least 1095 days, in practice the key issue is the number of days (within four years) of actual, physical presence in Canada.

One can apply with less than 1095 days of actual, physical presence, and indeed should be eligible (though the Federal Courts continue to waffle some about this, even though I am pretty sure CIC policy explicitly recognizes such eligibility) so long as they actually "resided" in Canada for more than 1095 days notwithstanding some absences during that period (such as for holidays, family visits abroad, and such, the shorter the better). HOWEVER given the way the process works, RQ is virtually guaranteed for the latter, and that will entail a much longer processing time line in addition to the burden of the RQ itself, and the Citizenship Judge holds rather wide discretion in such cases. It really behooves you to wait until you have more than 1095 days of actual, physical presence in Canada before applying.

Obviously, a person may maintain their residence in Canada even though they take holidays abroad. However, any trip abroad (including into the U.S.) in which you do not return to Canada on the same calendar day (which in practice means all trips abroad except day trips to the U.S.) must be reported and those days do not count toward physical presence.

Outside the FAQs for residence calculation, the term "basic residence" does not appear all that often in CIC literature (shows up twice in the operational manual specifically governing the residence calculation for example) or in the Federal Court decisions discussing the three recognized tests for determining whether an applicant has met the "residency" requirement. In the FAQs "basic residence" is mentioned frequently but in some instances inconsistently, though most often used as a synonym for "days of actual, physical presence" in the context of 1095 such days being required (that is, "basic residence" does not includie days absent from Canada -- see A3 in FAQs at
http://services3.cic.gc.ca/rescalc/redir.do?redir=faq ).

The FAQs state:

Only a citizenship judge can determine if you meet the residence requirements with fewer than 1,095 days of physical presence. If you apply with fewer than 1,095 days of physical presence, a citizenship judge will evaluate the nature of your residence in Canada. You will be asked to complete a residence questionnaire and provide evidence that establishes residence in Canada, and you might be asked to appear in person before a citizenship judge. When you apply with fewer than 1,095 days of physical presence, your application will take longer to process and may be refused by the citizenship judge. Deciding to apply with fewer than 1,095 days of physical presence is a personal decision that should be made carefully and take into account your personal circumstances.

While that really does not tell anywhere near the whole story, the whole story is very complicated, full of nuance, and, actually, a lot of rather unreasonable uncertainty (given that despite the language of the statute itself, particularly since there was a discussion in Parliament about a proposal to impose a strict actual, physical presence requirement and that was not adopted, the Federal Courts still say that a citizenship judge may strictly apply a 1095 days of actual, physical presence test, and yet CIC decisions and materials suggest they ordinarily do not).

Again, best to have 1095 days of actual physical presence before applying.

Review the FAQs, which, again, are at:
http://services3.cic.gc.ca/rescalc/redir.do?redir=faq

Note: there are some circumstances in which waiting to meet the requirement based on physical presence will not work for some individuals, and such individuals may very well be wise to apply based on maintaining residency itself rather than meeting the requirement based on actual, physical presence. Such cases, however, are precisely the sort of case that is likely to draw more scrutiny (basically such cases are those in which someone spends so much time abroad, but maintains their residency in Canada, they may never meet the physical presence test or they otherwise qualify now based on residency but qualifying based on physical presence is well into the future . . . and a couple other fairly narrow situations) and thus take quite a long while in process, and include a fairly intense level of scrutiny at the RQ and interview before a Citizenship Judge stage.

http://services3.cic.gc.ca/rescalc/resCalcStartNew.do

I found the answer to the question that i asked earlier.. i.e.

Q: so guys lets say i leave canada on 1st of the month and come bak on 20th, so the days dated 1st and 20th, i m on canadian soil .. so actual no. of days i was away was 18, right, is that how it works?

A: When calculating an absence, either the day you leave Canada or the day you return is considered an absence, but not both. For example, an absence between July 1, 2003 and July 15, 2003 equals 14 days of absence.

thanks guys for your inputs.