how long did it take for voyager to return to earth

Voyager did not return to Earth; it is still out in interstellar space. If you mean the time for a signal to come back from Voyager 1, NASA says the round-trip communication delay is about 45 hours total : roughly 22.5 hours each way.

What that means

• Voyager 1 is about 15 billion miles from Earth.

• A message from Earth takes about 22.5 hours to reach it, and the reply takes another 22.5 hours to get back.

• In one NASA update, the spacecraft was described as returning usable engineering data after about five months of troubleshooting, not physically returning to Earth.

If you meant the probe’s travel time

Voyager 1 launched in 1977 and has been traveling ever since, reaching interstellar space after decades, so it has taken far longer than a human trip home because it was never designed to come back.

Quick answer

• Physical return to Earth: it hasn’t happened.
• Radio “return” time: about 45 hours round trip.

Would you like the same answer for Voyager 2 as well?