Is there a required time to return home before a report date while deployed?

In time for you to report. It's your Commanders responsibility to ensure you don't miss your report date. If you do, you're talking about a deferment that has to come from your BDE CDR, and most Captains and 1SGs are not willing to face the wrath of the COL and BDE CSM for failing to do a very simple task

How in the Hell do you have orders anywhere??? DA normally locks a unit out of the order loop during time up to deploy and return from deployment.

It’s probably up to YOU, believe it or not—up to you to complain enough and put a bug in people’s ear that you need to get back so you can report. You need more than just 24 hours from landing to report—what if your plane is just a little late?

Worst case: I had a friend when I was in the Marine Officer basic course. He (like me) was prior-enlisted. Except he was in Force Recon. In fact, he was deployed aboard ship (USS Nassau) with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit on its scheduled deployment. In fact, he was part of the unit sent ashore to Albania to evacuate 800 non-combatants (a NEO) in Operation Silver Wake (1997) during the Albanian Civil War. And then the MEU was sent to the Republic of the Congo, where he was sent ashore as part of Operation Guardian Retrieval, for a possible NEO in Zaire. In FACT, while he was in Brazzaville, at the airport, they witnessed a civilian F-27 commuter plane crash where they and some French Foreign Legionnaires rescued the passengers from the burning wreckage.

Why am I telling you all this? Because he had a report date to go to officer candidate school, in the middle of the deployment. Due to the logistics of being in Congo, then getting him back to the ship, then getting him to the carrier, then getting him to a base somewhere, then getting him onto an airliner somewhere, they didn’t budget enough time. OCS is entry-level training, like boot camp. All the other candidates are showing up on time to get yelled at by drill instructors. He showed up a FULL DAY LATE. They showed him no mercy. Why are you so late, candidate?!? Why should you deserve gold bars? He said, “Give me a break, I was in Africa, 30 hours ago.”

So be LOUD, that planes get delayed, travel goes awry, you need to pack and do laundry when you get there, and hopefully get ONE good night’s sleep before reporting. It’ll be YOUR fault if things go bad, so it’s YOUR duty to nag for adequate travel time.

Interesting side note: we were two months into officer’s basic course when we were gathered in formation, and he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal (equivalent to the Soldier’s Medal, the highest non-combat award for lifesaving), presented by a three-star general. We had no idea. He had to explain about the plane crash in the Congo.