Hi, so just wanted to ask if there are any limits to the amount of days i can be out of the country and still be considered a resident for that year in Ireland?
I know that for the final 5th year you cannot be out for more than 70 days with a 30 day add on under exceptional circumstances.
However, i am currently in my fourth year and I am leaving next week for 5 weeks and then might have to leave for another week or 2 during summer. Is that okay?
In the past 4 years i have never left the country for more than 3 weeks in a single year.
Sorry if i come across as ignorant, its just that i was getting mixed answers over the internet. Thanks.
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No need to apologise! It's not simple, and it's not well documented anywhere:
As you've noted, the final year is simple. You cannot be absent more than 70 days (with up to 30 exceptional circumstances) in your final year.
For your remaining 4 years of residency, you have to show 365*4 days of residency in the preceding 8 years.
Every year where you're absent for less than 70 days, counts as 365 days towards your residency.
The consensus seems to be that for every year where you're absent for more than 70 days, all your absent days won't count for residency. So if you're absent for 80 days in one year, you'll only get 285 days residency from that year, so you'll need to make up those 80 days residency from further back in the past than just the last 5 years.
If you're absent for more than 70 days in any of you're years then you'll have to answer Yes to the question "were you absent from the State for more than 70 days per annum in any of the last 5 years?". Once you answer Yes to that question, you have to list every single absence from the state across the whole period you're using to claim your full 365*5 days residency (could be spread over up to 9 years).
If you're going to be out of Ireland for 5+2=7 weeks this year, at 49 days that's still less than 70 days (which would be 10 weeks). It's worth noting that the travel days where you leave/arrive back in Ireland don't count as days absent.
I'd try to keep your absences below 70 days not least to simplify your application. For someone who travels a bit I really wouldn't want to go digging back through 5 years worth of ticket booking emails to work out every time I'd travelled!
Thank you so much for such an elaborated response. In my mind i thought that i couldn’t leave the state for more than 6 weeks a year. 70 days is a lot. Thank you so much!😊
It used to be 6 week. The equivalent question when I applied was "Have you been absent from the State for more than 6 weeks per annum in any of the past 5 years?"
They increased it to 70 days a few years ago, which feels much harder to accidentally go over.
From my personal experience, no that's not the case. Also, the form only asks you to explain those absences. I was absent for around 90 days in one year, and around 80 days in another (COVID years). As long as you had a genuine reason and you have clearly explained it, you should be fine with those absences.
That’s not true. According to the official citizenship guidance document, you can claim a year towards citizenship as long as you have not been out for more than 6 months and have the residence documents otherwise to show that you’ve been a bona fide resident of Ireland (like you can’t be living out of a hotel/airbnb).
https://www.irishimmigration.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Citizenship-Guidance-Document-April-2024.pdf
Like the other commenter noted as well, just because they ask you to explain the absences doesn’t mean they’ll automatically reject your application if you’ve been out of the country more than 70 days in any of the years except for in the final year.
According to the official website, the only time you can’t leave the country for more than 70 days is during the final year.
It still seems unclear in that document too. The only mention of 6 months is in relation to whether you require a police certificate from other places you've been living. It'd be great if they published some clearer guidance.
I'm going by this post from someone far more knowledgeable than me who works at a centre that supports people with complicated citizenship/immigration issues. Note also their comment about potential immigration stamp revocation https://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=349448#p2172262
Maybe the rules have changed in the past 2 years? 🤷