I'm going to post in detail, using your example, how one should go about this -- not for the benefit of just yourself, but for the benefit of others with the same question as yourself (and trust me, there's plenty on this forum who don't know how to calculate presence!).
Step 1: work out the time periods
The statutory requirement is that the presence requirement must be met immediately preceding the date of application (
Section 8(2)).
So, if you were to apply for the grant of New Zealand citizenship on 21 March 2022, these are your time periods:
- 21 March 2021 to 20 March 2022
- 21 March 2020 to 20 March 2021
- 21 March 2019 to 20 March 2020
- 21 March 2018 to 20 March 2019
- 21 March 2017 to 20 March 2018
A common mistake here is to calculate the time periods forwards from the applicant's first day in New Zealand as a resident. This is not aligned with the statutory requirement above, and is therefore incorrect. It is necessary to instead work backwards from the proposed date of application. Getting the time periods wrong here will result in an incorrect presence calculation.
Step 2: calculate presence for each time period
Per
Section 8(2)(b)(ii), you must be present in New Zealand for at least 240 days (being days during which you are entitled in terms of the Immigration Act to be in New Zealand indefinitely, i.e. while holding a residence class visa) in each of the five one-year periods calculated above.
Period 1: 21 March 2021 to 20 March 2022
Here, the travel between 2020-12-18 and 2021-07-15 is relevant, as part of this absence falls within this period.
We therefore need to look at how many days there are between 2021-07-15 and 2022-03-20, inclusive (as we are counting 2021-07-15 as a day in New Zealand). This is 249 days from the start date to the end date, end date included.
The requirement for this period will be met, provided that there is no further travel within this period (since the period end date is in the future).
Period 2: 21 March 2020 to 20 March 2021
Again, the travel between 2020-12-18 and 2021-07-15 is relevant, as the remainder of this absence falls within this period. There is no other travel within this period.
Therefore, we need to look at how many days there are between 2020-03-21 and 2020-12-18, inclusive (as we are counting 2020-12-18 as a day in New Zealand). This is 273 days from the start date to the end date, end date included.
The requirement for this period is met.
Period 3: 21 March 2019 to 20 March 2020
There are two travel movements we need to look at here. The travel movement from 2019-03-15 to 2019-04-01 is partially with this period (with the remainder being in Period 4), and the travel movement from 2019-12-23 to 2020-01-03 is completely within this period.
First, we need to truncate the start date of this period to 2019-04-01, much like we've done with Period 1 and Period 2 above. Since that's the last 11 days of March 2019 that we cannot count, that cuts us down to 355 days. (Note that Period 3 has a total of 366 days due to it including 29th February 2020).
With that done, we can now examine the travel movement from 2019-12-23 to 2020-01-03. Since we will count both 2019-12-23 and 2020-01-03 as days in New Zealand, we'll look at the days you were not in New Zealand, which comes to 10 days. We'll subtract this from 355 days from the earlier calculation, and arrive at our final result for Period 3: 345 days.
The requirement for this period is met.
Period 4: 21 March 2018 to 20 March 2019
We first return to the travel movement from 2019-03-15 to 2019-04-01 that we used in Period 3, as part of this travel movement is within Period 4. This means we have to truncate the period end date to 2019-03-15, and doing that gives us 360 days.
Then, we consider the travel movement from 2018-03-28 to 2018-05-08, as this travel movement falls entirely within Period 4. Again, we'll count 2018-03-28 and 2018-05-08 as days in New Zealand, so the period of absence (excluding both those days) is 40 days. Subtracting that from 360 gives us 320 days. There are no other travel movements within this period, so that will be the final outcome.
The requirement for this period is met.
Period 5: 21 March 2017 to 20 March 2018
For the last period, most people will need to look at the day that they were first in New Zealand as a resident, and truncate the period start date to that. Remember that Section 8(2)(b) states that only days during which the applicant is entitled in terms of the Immigration Act to be in New Zealand indefinitely may be reckoned, so presence in New Zealand on a temporary entry class visa (such as a Visitor Visa, Work Visa, Student Visa, etc.) cannot be reckoned. In this example, we do not have to do this, because the first day in New Zealand as a resident is before the start date of this period.
There are no travel movements within this period: the travel movement from 2018-03-28 to 2018-05-08 fell entirely within Period 4 (and was dealt with there), and the travel movement from 2016-12-22 to 2017-01-23 is entirely before this period and can therefore be completely disregarded.
This period therefore has 365 days of presence, and the requirement for this period is met.
Step 3: calculate presence for all time periods
Per
Section 8(2)(b)(i), you must be present in New Zealand for at least 1,350 days (being days during which you are entitled in terms of the Immigration Act to be in New Zealand indefinitely, i.e. while holding a residence class visa) across the entire 5 year period immediately preceding the date of application.
Since we've already calculated the presence in the five one-year periods immediately preceding the date of application, this is as simple as adding them all up. 249 + 273 + 345 + 320 + 365 adds up to 1,552 days.
The presence requirement for the entire 5 year period is met.
Conclusion
All presence requirements will be met if the Department of Internal Affairs receives a complete application, together with the application fee, on 21 March 2022 (New Zealand Time).