Does USCIS counts both departure and return days as days of physical presence in US

[naida]

I was outside of US 182 days or 5 months and 29 days excluding the end date. But, everywhere I read it says USCIS counts both the departure and return days as days of physical presence in the United States. If that's true then that means that I was outside of US not 182 but 180 days. Also, that was the beginning of COVID and I read that they extended the period from 180 days to one year.

Did anyone had similar case? It seems that since I was exactly 180 days but not more then I didn't break my continuous residence requirement, right?

[newacct]

Are you talking about the Continuous Residence requirement for naturalization? It seems from the example at the end of 12 USCIS-PM D.3(C)(2) that they do not count the day of departure and the day of return as part of the absence (i.e. January 1, 2010 to January 2, 2011 was only counted as an absence of 365 days).

Also, there's some ambiguity whether it's 6 months or 180 days. Both INA 316(b) and 8 CFR 316.5(c)(1)(i) say 6 months, but 12 USCIS-PM D.3(C)(1) says "An absence of more than 6 months (more than 180 days)".

There were never any changes to the rules during COVID. However, it was always the case that the presumption of breaking continuous residence with an absence of between 6 months and 1 year could be overcome with certain evidence.