The Physical Presence Test: Counting 330 Full Days the Way the IRS Does

The physical presence test is the objective route to the foreign earned income exclusion. Section 911(d)(1)(B) says a citizen or resident of the United States qualifies if, during any period of 12 consecutive months, he or she is present in a foreign country or countries for at least 330 full days. You also need a foreign tax home.

The IRS describes the test as based only on how long you stay. It does not depend on the kind of residence you establish, your intentions about returning, or the nature and purpose of your stay. That makes it ideal for people on assignments, people who move around, and people in their first year abroad.

It also makes it unforgiving. The test is pass or fail.

What counts as a full day

The regulation, 26 CFR 1.911-2(d), defines a full day as a continuous period of 24 hours beginning with midnight and ending with the following midnight. Partial days do not count. The day you arrive is usually not a full day. The day you leave is usually not a full day.

Three rules about travel come from the regulation and the IRS's guidance:

• International waters and airspace do not count. Time on or over international waters is not time in a foreign country. If you travel over areas outside any foreign country for less than 24 hours, you are not deemed outside a foreign country during that travel, but if the trip takes 24 hours or more, you lose full days.
• Short U.S. transit does not count against you. If you are in transit between two points outside the United States and are physically in the United States for less than 24 hours, you are not treated as present in the United States during the transit.
• Moving between foreign countries is fine. You can move from one place to another in a foreign country, or between foreign countries, without losing days, as long as you do not spend a full day outside every foreign country.

The IRS gives an example: you leave the United States for France on June 10 and arrive on June 11. Your first full day in France is June 12.

The 12-month period is yours to choose

The regulation says a 12-month period may begin with any day but must end on the day before the corresponding day in the twelfth succeeding month. The IRS says you can choose the 12-month period that gives you the greatest exclusion, and periods may overlap.

The 330 days do not have to be consecutive. You add up all the separate periods you spent in foreign countries during the 12 months.

That flexibility is valuable. Because the exclusion is prorated by the days in your qualifying period, picking the right window can increase the number of days in a given tax year that count. For a first year abroad, the best 12-month period usually starts on your first full day abroad. For a final year, it usually ends on your last full day abroad.

Why 330 leaves only 35 days

Twelve months contain 365 days, or 366 in a leap period. At 330 required full days abroad, you have about 35 days of slack for everything else: visits to the United States, the travel days themselves, and any time you spend in places that are not foreign countries for this purpose.

Those travel days add up fast. A round trip home typically burns two partial days that do not count, on top of the days you spend in the States. Three trips home a year, a week each, can use most of your margin.

A worked count

Suppose you move to Madrid, leaving New York on the evening of February 14, 2026 and landing on February 15. Your first full day in Spain is February 16. You stay abroad, moving between Spain, France and Portugal, except for a trip home: you fly to the United States on July 1, arriving the same day, and fly back on July 15, landing in Madrid on July 16.

Days lost to that trip: July 1 through July 16, because none of those days is a full midnight-to-midnight day in a foreign country. That is 16 days.

Now pick the 12-month period that starts February 16, 2026 and ends February 15, 2027. That window has 365 days. Subtract the 16 lost days and you have 349 full days abroad, comfortably over 330. You qualify for 2026, and your 2026 exclusion is prorated for the days from February 16 through December 31 that fall within the qualifying period.

Add a second two-week trip home at Thanksgiving and a week at the end of December, and you lose roughly another 25 days, landing near 324. Now you fail for that window and need a different one, or a different plan. That is how quickly the margin disappears.

No excuses, with one exception

The IRS is explicit: if you fall short of 330 full days for any reason, including illness, family problems or a vacation, you do not meet the test. There is no partial credit.

The one exception is the waiver in section 911(d)(4) for people who had to leave a country because of war, civil unrest or similar adverse conditions, during a period the IRS has identified. If it applies, the minimum time requirement is waived and only the days actually spent abroad count.

What counts as a foreign country

Under 26 CFR 1.911-2(h), a foreign country is any territory under the sovereignty of a government other than the United States, including its territorial waters and airspace. Publication 54 notes that U.S. territories are not treated as foreign countries for this purpose. Time in Puerto Rico or Guam does not count toward your 330 days.

Section 911(d)(8) also excludes days in countries subject to certain U.S. travel restrictions under the Trading With the Enemy Act or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, unless your activities there do not violate those restrictions.

Physical presence vs. bona fide residence

Which test should you use? If you have settled abroad for a full calendar year and can show genuine residence, the bona fide residence test is more forgiving about trips home. If you are on a temporary assignment, in your first year abroad, or moving between countries, physical presence is often the only option.

You can switch between tests from year to year as your facts change. What you cannot do is use physical presence in a year you spent 60 days in the United States.

Practical tips

A last word on travel days. People often count days on a calendar and forget the time zones. A flight that leaves Asia after midnight local time and lands in the United States the same calendar day can cost two full days, not one. When the count is close, reconstruct each trip hour by hour using departure and arrival times in local time, and count midnights. That is how the regulation counts, and it is how an examiner will count.

• Keep a travel log with dates and times of every border crossing. Passport stamps are incomplete in many places.
• Save boarding passes and itineraries. Flight times matter when you are counting midnights.
• Before booking a trip home late in the year, count your days. A week can decide the exclusion.
• If you are close to the line in your first year, consider filing Form 2350 to extend the return deadline until you meet the test. See filing deadlines for Americans abroad.

Physical presence also matters beyond the exclusion. The Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures use a similar 330-day count, along with a no-U.S.-abode requirement, as part of their non-residency test. See streamlined foreign. Count carefully, document everything, and let's talk if the count is close.