30 consecutive months rule for citizenship

[healthteacher 18]

Hi, I am wondering if someone could explain the 30 consecutive months residency requirement for applying for citizenship.Does it mean 30 consecutive months without any absence,or 30 consecutive months without an absence of more than 6 months during the 30 month period?

[arken 4,201]

There is no 30 consecutive moths rule. You need at least combined 30 months of physical presence in the US out of 60 months. Absence of 6 months or more but less than 1 year will need evidences of maintaining residence in the US.

Edited May 9, 2016 by arken

[JimmyHou 615]

Arken is right, it's not 30 consecutive months... when you add up all the days you were in the US over the past 5 years (60 months), that number has to be greater than 30 months.

So, for example, if you've been spending 1 week of every month in the US for the last 5 years, that would be a total of 1x12x5=60 weeks or 15 months of physical presence in the US and would not be enough.

This is called the Physical Presence requirement.

The second requirement, called the Continuous Residence requirement is related to demonstrating that you have continuously maintained residence in the US... trips over 1 year usually break continuous residence, trips under 1 year (even those under 6 months in special circumstances) may break continuous residence. Short, even frequent, trips abroad will not affect this.

[akihon 129]

oh my god if the requirement was 30 consecutive months, I might just ragequit US immigration