The physical presence test is one of the two routes by which a US citizen or resident alien whose tax home is in a foreign country becomes a qualified individual for the foreign earned income exclusion, the foreign housing exclusion and the foreign housing deduction (IRS, foreign earned income exclusion). It is met by presence in a foreign country or countries during at least 330 full days in any period of 12 consecutive months (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(1)(B)). The test is arithmetic. It does not depend on the kind of residence established, the filer’s intentions about returning to the United States, or the nature and purpose of the stay abroad (IRS, physical presence test).
The tax home requirement attaches to the days themselves. It has to sit in a foreign country or countries throughout the 330 full days of presence (26 CFR 1.911-2(a)(1)(ii)). Intent is not absent from the analysis. It moves. Intentions about the nature and purpose of the stay abroad are relevant in determining whether the tax home test is met (IRS, physical presence test). The abode limit that comes with the tax home requirement is worked through in tax home.
What Counts as a Full Day
A full day is a period of 24 consecutive hours, beginning and ending at midnight, and the whole of it has to be spent in a foreign country to count. Time on or over international waters, leaving the United States or returning to it, is not time in a foreign country, so the count starts on the first day spent wholly in foreign territory rather than on the day of the flight (IRS, physical presence test).
Moving between foreign countries costs days only where part of the travel sits outside foreign territory and takes 24 hours or more, and a crossing that long forfeits every day it touches. Someone in transit between two points outside the United States who is physically present in the United States for less than 24 hours is not treated as present there, but as travelling over areas not within any foreign country, and travel of that kind under 24 hours does not put the individual outside a foreign country, so the layover costs no full days (26 CFR 1.911-2(d)(2), IRS, physical presence test).
Days spent somewhere US law bars travel do not count either. Where travel to a foreign country is subject to regulations adopted under the Trading With the Enemy Act or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, an individual is not treated as present in that country for any day within that period, and income from sources within it for services performed during that period is not foreign earned income (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(8), IRS, physical presence test). The limit falls away for any period in which the individual’s activities are not in violation of those regulations (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(8)(C)).
Any 12 Consecutive Months, Not the Tax Year
The window is chosen, not given. A period of 12 consecutive months may begin with any day, must end on the day before the corresponding day in the twelfth succeeding month, and may begin before arrival in the foreign country or end after departure (26 CFR 1.911-2(d)(1), 26 U.S.C. 911(d)(1)(B)).
The 330 days inside it need not be consecutive, separate periods are added together, and windows may overlap. On the IRS’s own dates, a filer with a tax home in New Zealand from January 1, 2024 through August 31, 2025, who spends 28 days of each February on vacation in the United States, still clears 330 full days in both January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 and September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2025 (IRS, physical presence test).
The window still has to touch the year being filed. The instructions put that as a length: the 12-month period must include 365 days, or 366 days during a leap year, part of which must be in 2025 (IRS, Instructions for Form 2555 (2025)).
Where the Physical Presence Test Lands on Form 2555
Part III is the physical presence part of the form, and it is open to US citizens and all resident aliens (IRS, Form 2555 (2025)). Which part a filer completes, and the election that follows, sit in bona fide residence test.
Line 16 takes the 12-month period as a start date and an end date, with both spaces filled and “Continues” not accepted as an ending date (IRS, Instructions for Form 2555 (2025)).
Line 17 takes the principal country of employment for the tax year, and line 18 is the travel table: the name of the country including the United States, the date arrived, the date left, full days present in that country, the number of days in the United States on business, and income earned in the United States on business. Travel between foreign countries that did not cross international waters or the United States for 24 hours or more stays off that table, and a filer with none to report enters that they were physically present in a foreign country or countries for the entire 12-month period (IRS, Form 2555 (2025)).
The Adverse Conditions Waiver
The 330-day minimum can be waived where war, civil unrest or similar adverse conditions force a departure, on the same section 911(d)(4) terms that govern the other route (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(4)).
It is not a facts and circumstances waiver. Each year the IRS publishes in the Internal Revenue Bulletin a list of the only countries that qualify for the waiver for the previous year and the dates they qualify, and the benefit is open only to someone who left one of those countries during the period indicated (IRS, Instructions for Form 2555 (2025)). The determination is the Secretary’s, made after consultation with the Secretary of State or his delegate, and the individual has to establish that the time requirement could reasonably have been expected to be met but for those conditions (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(4)).
The relief is narrow, and it changes the filing. The benefits run only for the days the individual was actually present in the country, a statement explaining that conditions there prevented the normal conduct of business is attached to the return, and “Claiming Waiver” is entered in the top margin on page 1 of Form 2555 (IRS, Instructions for Form 2555 (2025)).
What It Is Commonly Confused With
The bona fide residence test. The alternative qualification under the same statute, which asks instead whether a citizen made a home abroad for an uninterrupted period that includes an entire taxable year (26 U.S.C. 911(d)(1)(A)). It is set out in bona fide residence test.
The substantial presence test. The same words pointed the other way. That one counts days spent inside the United States to decide whether an alien individual is taxed as a US resident, and it is set out in substantial presence test.
Common Questions
Test the other windows first, since any 12 consecutive months can be used and they may overlap. Where none reaches 330 full days, this route fails whatever the reason for the shortfall, including illness, family problems, a vacation, or an employer’s orders (IRS, physical presence test). The other qualification route may still be open on the same facts, and relief for foreign tax paid on the same income is a separate question, handled in double tax.
Firms picking up expatriate day counts on top of a domestic busy season can put a block of that preparation through a trial task before any of it reaches a client file.
