Australia
Australian citizenship residence calculator: your first date to apply
Enter the day you started living in Australia on a visa, the day your permanent visa started and every trip: the first day you can apply appears on the right.
Earliest date you can apply
You can apply today
On that date
| Four years of lawful residence | met |
| Permanent resident for 12 months | met |
| Days abroad in the period (35 / limit 365) | met |
| Days abroad in the last 12 months (0 / limit 90) | met |
The general residence requirement for Australian citizenship by conferral has three parts, all measured back from the day you apply. You must have lived in Australia on a valid visa for the 4 years immediately before that day; you must have held a permanent visa for the last 12 months; and you must not have been absent for more than 365 days in total over the 4 years, nor more than 90 days in the last 12 months. This calculator tries each day from today onwards and gives the first one where all three are met. On counting, a Home Affairs instruction released under freedom of information says that days on which you arrived in or departed from Australia count as days in Australia, so only the days fully abroad are absences; the calculator follows that rule. Home Affairs's own residence calculator checks one date you type; this one searches for the date, and you can add trips you have only planned.
Questions, dates and fees by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the questions and dates are built
The three rules, measured from the day you apply
| Rule | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Lawful residence | 4 years living in Australia on a valid visa |
| Permanent visa | held for the last 12 months |
| Absences over the period | 365 days in total at most |
| Absences in the last 12 months | 90 days at most |
| Day of departure or arrival | counts as a day in Australia |
The worked example from Home Affairs
The instruction released under freedom of information gives an example. Mr Barnaby first entered Australia on 1 January 2016 and became a permanent resident on 1 January 2019. He was away from 7 September 2017 to 30 June 2018, then from 23 March to 29 May 2019, and applied on 1 January 2020. The document counts 296 and 67 days, a total of 363, and concludes that he meets the requirement because he stays under 365 days. Those figures are the differences between the dates; counting only the days fully abroad, as the same document's rule says, gives 295 and 66, so 361. Either way he is eligible on that date, and our test suite checks that the calculator agrees.
Which dates to enter
For your permanent visa, Home Affairs says it usually starts on the date the visa was granted if you were in Australia, or the date you first entered Australia on it. The first date is the day you started living in Australia on any valid visa, for example a student or work visa; the department accepts an estimate if you are sure it was more than 4 years ago. Enter every trip of the last 4 years, and the trips you plan before applying.
New Zealand citizens
Special rules on the date permanent residence started apply to some New Zealand citizens holding a Special Category (subclass 444) visa or a New Zealand stream Skilled Independent (subclass 189) visa. For the subclass 189 visa, Home Affairs says that a visa granted on or after 1 January 2023 lets you apply from the grant date, without the 12 months as a permanent resident; choose that option in the calculator. If it was granted during 2022, you are considered a permanent resident from 1 January 2022: enter that date as the start of your permanent visa. For a subclass 444 visa, check the start date on the Home Affairs page before relying on the result. The 4-year and absence rules still apply in every case.
When the date is not the end
Meeting the residence rule lets you lodge. The other conditions still apply, most applicants aged 18 to 59 sit the citizenship test, and the department cannot approve an application while you are outside Australia. The processing time page shows how long the decision and the ceremony currently take.