President Trump on Tuesday unveiled a new pathway to residency: a “gold card” aimed at wealthy foreigners willing to pay millions for the right to live in the U.S.
That term is a play on the green card, more officially known as a permanent residency card, which allows non-citizens to live and work permanently in the U.S. Green cards are most frequently awarded to foreigners who marry U.S. citizens or to those who receive one through their employer, with the latter process taking an average of three years to complete, according to the Cato Institute.
The new program comes as the Trump administration moves to change the country’s rules for who can legally live, work and gain citizenship in the U.S. That includes tightening restrictions on many types of immigration in the U.S. and pushing to end birthright citizenship, the constitutionally protected right to citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.
The U.S. already opens the door to wealthy non-U.S. citizens who want residency through what is known as an EB-5 visa. But that program, launched in 1990, has long been cited for potential abuses, including one prominent case from almost a decade ago that involved owners of a Vermont ski resort embezzling millions from foreign investors who hoped to score visas through the program.
Yet both the new gold card and the EB-5 program have a common goal: Attracting foreign capital by allowing rich non-citizens to ante up in exchange for a U.S. residency visa.
“It’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card, they’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday.
Here’s what to know about the gold card plan.
What is Trump’s gold card?
The gold card will offer a new route for rich non-U.S. citizens to gain a valid visa to live and work in the U.S., according to Mr. Trump, who spoke Tuesday about the new visa with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick from the Oval Office.
The cost of each new visa will be $5 million, Mr. Trump said.
“We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus,” the president added.
Green cards allow recipients to live permanently in the U.S. and work for whomever they choose. By comparison, some immigrants, such as those on H-1B visas, are locked into working for the employer that sponsored their visa.
Green card holders can also travel in and out of the U.S. without restriction, and are able to start the process to become a U.S. citizen.
When will the gold card be available?
Lutnick said the gold cards would be available starting in about two weeks.
Will the gold card replace the EB-5 visa?
Yes, with Lutnick on Tuesday describing the EB-5 program as “full of nonsense, make believe and fraud.”
“So the President said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we’re going to end the EB-5 program,” Lutnick said in joining Mr. Trump to outline the gold card program from the Oval Office. “We’re going to replace it with the Trump Gold Card, which is really a Green Card Gold.”
One major difference between the gold card and the EB-5 visa — the cost, with the latter requiring applicants to invest about $1 million in the U.S., typically by putting the money into a business. But the EB-5 visa also comes with a host of other requirements, such as documenting that the investment will create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for U.S. workers.
How much money could the gold card raise for the U.S.?
Mr. Trump suggested that the the U.S. could “sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that.”
At $5 million each, selling 1 million gold cards could raise $5 trillion, he said.
“And if you sell 10 million of the cards, that’s a total of $50 trillion,” Mr. Trump added. “We have $35 trillion in debt. That’ll be nice, so we’ll see.”
Typically, the number of annual applicants for EB-5 visas is far lower than what Mr. Trump projects for the gold card. About 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Department’s most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.
If roughly 8,000 people received gold cards each year, the U.S. would raise about $40 billion annually through the program.
The U.S. is a top immigration destination for rich investors, according to Henley & Partners, a company that provides immigration advisory services. The group estimated that the U.S. had the second-biggest net influx of millionaires in 2024, following the United Arab Emirates, at about 3,800 foreign millionaires moving stateside last year.
Who could qualify for a gold card?
Aside from having $5 million to pay the U.S. government, gold card applicants would also have to meet other criteria, Lutnick said.
“They’ll have to go through vetting, of course, we’re going to make sure they’re wonderful world class global citizens,” he said, without providing details.
Asked by reporters if Russian oligarchs could qualify for the visa, Mr. Trump responded, “Possibly.”
He added, “Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people. It’s possible. They’re not as wealthy as they used to be. I think they could afford — I think they could afford $5 million.”
Do other nations offer gold cards?
Yes, investor visas are common around the world. More than 100 countries offer “golden visas” to wealthy individuals, including the U.S., United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy, according to Henley & Partners.
Does the gold card need congressional approval?
Congress determines qualifications for citizenship, but Mr. Trump said gold cards would not require congressional approval.
“We have it all worked out from the legal standpoint. It’s totally legal to do,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication — it’s a road to citizenship for people, and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country.”
contributed to this report.
