Counting Years of Exemption

For the two-year period during which a scholar can be exempt, and the five-year period during which a student can be exempt from counting days toward the substantial presence test, presence in the U.S. for any part of a calendar year counts as a full year's presence.

For example, if a scholar arrived in the U.S. in December 2021 this is the first year of that person's two years. If the person stayed in the U.S. into 2022, and is subject to a two-year limit, that limit was reached at the end of 2022, so the substantial presence test began to apply at the beginning of 2023.