Days outside the US

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Dedo

Registered Users (C)
I am filling out our N400 forms and and filling all the trips out of the US. Where it asks "Total number of days out of US", do I count the day of departure and day of arrival, or only the whole days in between where I was actually out of the country?

I know its a small technicality but I want to be sure. Wont impact my continuous stay in any way.

Thanks
 
Usually, if you were in the US for part of a day, that day is counted as if you were in the US for the whole day, so departure and arrival days count as days in the country.
 
When I did my N400, I went conservative when counting days and included departure and entry dates. So if I went to Canada on Jan 1st and returned on Jan 2nd, I counted that as two days being out of the US. The N400 asks to list any outside trips that lasted longer 24 hours.
 
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Well, I am not sure what to do here. There are no guidelines specified around this. Would love to get input from others as well. If I count departure and arrival, I have 29 trips for a total of 163 days in last 5 years (none longer than 6 mo, or even 2-3 weeks for that matter). If I use the WBH rule above, the days out would 105...big difference
 
Dedo said:
Well, I am not sure what to do here. There are no guidelines specified around this. Would love to get input from others as well. If I count departure and arrival, I have 29 trips for a total of 163 days in last 5 years (none longer than 6 mo, or even 2-3 weeks for that matter). If I use the WBH rule above, the days out would 105...big difference
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There are also trips when I left one day and came back the next,so then days out would be 0. I will likely count the departure and arrival days to be safe
 
Dedo said:
Well, I am not sure what to do here. There are no guidelines specified around this.
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There is a guideline. Page 24 of the Guide To Naturalization says "Generally, partial days spent in the United States count as whole days spent in the United States."
 
Jackolantern said:
There is a guideline. Page 24 of the Guide To Naturalization says "Generally, partial days spent in the United States count as whole days spent in the United States."
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Thank you, I see that in the detailed instructions. What do you suggest I do? I have 2 trips where I left one days and came back the next. Should I mark those as 0 days out of the country?

Thanks
 
Dedo said:
Thank you, I see that in the detailed instructions. What do you suggest I do? I have 2 trips where I left one days and came back the next. Should I mark those as 0 days out of the country?
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If the trip was less than 24 hours, you don't need to list it at all. If it was more than 24 hours, list it but write 0 days. They are free to change it to 1 or 2 days if they want, and you haven't been outside the US long enough for that to affect your eligibility.

If you're worried that they might bother you about why you wrote 0 days for those trips, print the page that has the guideline for counting partial days as full days in the US and point it out.
 
Even if you counted all partial days as being full days out of the US, why are you worried about the total adding up to 163 days? All these trips fit within the guidelines necessary for naturalization without questions, right? I would just list them all and add them up conservatively.
 
JPBoston said:
Even if you counted all partial days as being full days out of the US, why are you worried about the total adding up to 163 days? All these trips fit within the guidelines necessary for naturalization without questions, right? I would just list them all and add them up conservatively.
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I am not worried about it, just wondering which is the correct approach. I wont get dinged for either one, but I may stick to the conservative approach. Thanks
 
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