How to calculate 180 days for green card holders being abroad? Will departure and arrival days be considered or not?

Question

I am a green card holder, I left the United States on January 3rd, 2020 @ 4:00 PM Houston time. I want to return to the States on July 1st, 2020 @ 8:00 PM. Will I be within the 180 days or not?

Possible combination:

leaving day in, arrival day in it will be 179 days.
leaving day in, arrival day out it will be 180 days.
leaving day out, arrival day in it will be 180 days.
leaving day out, arrival day out it will be 181 days.

If the answer is 180 days, will that be acceptable or will it be considered as having overstayed outside the States?

Can you give a reference for rules about 180 days for returning Green Card holders? — Patricia Shanahan, May 22 '20 at 14:13
Being absent for more than 180 consecutive days changes your legal status at the border: if you've been away for a shorter time you're not considered to be an applicant for admission (8 USC 1101(a)(13)(C)(ii)).https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1101 — Sam, May 22 '20 at 14:32
Yes, it does seem to be ambiguous. Do you have good evidence that you did not intend to abandon US residence? — Patricia Shanahan, May 22 '20 at 17:12
FYI Has the USCIS relaxed the requirements on being present in the US to maintain one's permanent resident status (green card) in response to COVID-19? and When flying to and from the United States, from/until what time does it count as days of presence from an IRS tax residence standpoint? — Franck Dernoncourt, May 22 '20 at 17:41
and from the US customs standpoint one enters the United States the moment one exits the plane — Franck Dernoncourt, May 22 '20 at 17:52
Rather than trying to resolve this uncertainly, consider avoiding the issue by returning to the US earlier, for example, on June 25. — DavidRecallsMonica, May 22 '20 at 20:44
Patrricia : I think COVID-19 travel restriction is enough to explain the delay. however my question is technical about how to count abroad days. — Sam, May 23 '20 at 04:37
David: Thank you for your suggestion, when i mentioned July 1st as travel back date this was because of travel restriction and airline operation from UAE to USA. It seem that this date is the most suitable one for me to travel from UAE with minimum stops as my wife is pregnant. if the same principle of federal and state law applies to my case then it seems that i will be considered as 179 days abroad, is that right? I found explanation about physicals presence and i request your opinion if that applicable to my case: https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-d-chapter-4 . — Sam, May 23 '20 at 04:50
Departure date from US was on January 3rd, 2020 @ 4:00 PM . Arrival date to US will be on July 1st, 2020 @ 8:00 PM. — Sam, May 23 '20 at 16:14
I strongly recommend that you do not push it this close. If you arrive onthe last possible day, and your flight is delayed a day, then there will be serious consequences. Why risk it? — DJClayworth, May 25 '20 at 15:03
@DJClayworth the consequences of remaining outside the US for more than 180 days are not for the most part particularly serious. — phoog, May 25 '20 at 16:12
@DavidSupportsMonica what of it? Being an "applicant for admission" may require a little more time at the border than otherwise, but it shouldn't cause much trouble in and of itself. — phoog, May 25 '20 at 16:13
Sam, I may well have been wrong in applying the statement in the policy manual to counting absence days in your case. As @phoog points out (in a comment to my answer) you're not counting days to address physical presence for naturalization, but instead counting physical absence for determination of whether you're considered to be "seeking an admission into the US for the purpose of the immigration laws" or not. That may well be a different computation. I don't know, so I've deleted my answer. — DavidRecallsMonica, May 25 '20 at 23:50

Franck Dernoncourt · Answer 1 · 2020-08-06T20:50:32.917

USCIS > Policy Manual > Volume 12 - Citizenship and Naturalization > Part D - General Naturalization Requirements > Chapter 4 - Physical Presence (mirror) (thanks to user102008 for pointing to it) states:

USCIS will count the day that an applicant departs from the United States and the day he or she returns as days of physical presence within the United States for naturalization purposes.

[3]: 3. USCIS will only count residence in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on or after November 28, 2009, as time counted for physical presence within the United States for naturalization purposes.

I'm not 100% sure this also applies to the 180-rule from the LII U.S. Code Title 8. ALIENS AND NATIONALITY Chapter 12. IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY Subchapter I. GENERAL PROVISIONS Section 1101. Definitions (mirror) that you mentioned though, but I'm hoping the USCIS counts days outside similarly for green-card-related rules.

Assuming we're counting integral days, which is probably a good assumption, any day with even one second of presence in the US is not a day of absence. Therefore, the day of departure should not count. But at the border, the returning LPR is probably not yet "present" for this purpose. I suspect therefore that the LPR must be considered an applicant for admission on the 181st day after departure, not counting the day of departure. But, once the LPR is admitted, that day does count as a day of presence for naturalization, so the duration of the absence decreases by a day. — phoog, Sep 01 '21 at 14:42

How to calculate 180 days for green card holders being abroad? Will departure and arrival days be considered or not?

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