Can I apply for US citizenship five years from the date of my entry to the US, not five years from the date of issuance of my green card?

NO. You have to be a permanent resident for a period of 5 years in order to qualify for naturalization. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or how I can be of further assistance to you in this matter. Thank you,

Thanks for your inquiry. The date that is used to count the time to obtain the necessary period of years for purposes of naturalization is the "resident since" date on your green card. If there is a problem with that date because of a miscalculation owing to someone at CIS not figuring out the right effective date of your residency, you want to make sure that you have that squared away before spending the money on the N-400 only to be told that you missed the deadline and filed too early. My recommendation would be a visit to an experienced attorney who should be able to straighten that out for you ahead of time and save the worry about submitting payment to CIS to process an application that will not be refunded if you did not calculate correctly. Good luck.

It's 5 years from the date of the issuance of your green card.

To be eligible for naturalization pursuant to section 316 of the Immigrantion and Nationality Act, you have to be a lawful permanent resident for a period of five years (so, from the date of the issuance of your permanent residence not date of entry into US). There are other statutory requirements as well that you will have to comply with.

Generally you must wait five years after becoming a US Permanent Resident prior to being able to apply for US Citizenship, unless your US Permanent Residency status was based on marriage to a US Citizen then the wait is shortened to three years. Feel free to contact me or another immigration attorney of your choice for further analysis based on your specific circumstances.