How to Qualify for the Ownership Test

For married couples, only one spouse needs to meet the ownership test. You need to have used the property as your primary residence at least 24 months out of the last five years up to the date of the sale. vacations or other short times away do not count against you. If you're physically or mentally unable to care for yourself and you need to go to a home like a care facility  you can still potentially meet this two-year test even if you didn't actually live in it for two years. So that's prong one. Prong two is the use test or residence test. It just in effect needs to be a total of 730 days during the last 5 years