Trump's Gold Card Initiative: Attracting Wealthy Entrepreneurs with Legal Hurdles

Last week President Trump launched his Gold Card initiative ostensibly to attract wealthy, entrepreneurial immigrants. However, the programme is still tied to visa availability and involves hefty investments that one may risk losing due to legal and congressional hurdles, explains Saikat Neogi President Donald Trump’s Gold Card programme was officially launched last week to attract ultra-high-net-worth individuals, offering a path to legal status and eventual US citizenship. It was created under the Executive Order 14351, implemented through presidential authority. Unlike EB-5, the Congress did not enact the Gold Card. In fact, EB-5 remains the only statutory investment-based pathway to a US green card for those who commit to investing in US businesses. The Gold Card does not mandate any job-creation obligation, but serves as an alternative to EB-5 and promises quicker processing that EB-1A. Eligibility for the Gold Card demands meeting the exceptional ability criteria. It does not create a new immigration category. A premium $5 million platinum option is also under consideration, which will offer preferential tax treatment on foreign-source income. It will not provide permanent residency and will be for long-term entry (up to 270 days annually). Investors’ visa or golden visas are offered to wealthy individuals in countries such as the UK, Spain, and Greece. An applicant will have to register on trumpcard.gov and make a non-refundable gift of $1 million. A similar amount has to be spent for each member of the applicant’s family. For corporate-sponsored applicants, the fee is $2 million and $1 million for each family member. The applicant must pay a processing fee of $15,000 per person to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Applications will be processed through a US embassy or consulate abroad. The Gold Card does not have Adjustment of Status, which means that no one can apply from the US. The applicants will have to prove the lawful origin of the gifted amount. The source of funds requirement is similar to EB-5 standards. Indians are the second largest EB-5 applicant group, which requires $800,000 investments in a Targeted Employment Area (TAE) or $1,050,000 outside TEA, and creation of 10-full time US jobs. The EB-5 process starts with a conditional Green Card status and transitions to permanent residency. Though the programme has introduced Form I-140G, similar to a premium-track I-140 (processing service), it is still tied to visa availability. Processing may be over in a weeks, but the number of immigration visas issued depends on the applicant’s country of birth and priority date movement. Applicants from certain nations have to wait for a long time due to visa backlogs. For Indians, the priority for the EB-1 category is April 2023, data from the US Visa Bulletin December 2025 show. So, applications filed before this date are now being processed. Also, applicants will have to meet the baseline requirement of exceptional ability clause like advanced degree, professional recognition, high salary relative to the field, and show their work has substantial merit and national importance. So, the hefty payout will not override the statutory eligibility needs. A day after the gold card was launched—seemingly to attract the wealthy—Trump projected the visa also as a solution to US failure to retain the foreign students that it educates. He suggested that it would help companies to hire directly graduates from elite educational institutions, whom they are otherwise unable to because of “visa uncertainty”. He named countries such as India, China, and France whose students could qualify for the visa. For such applicants, the route is the corporate gold card under which American firms can sponsor foreigners as employees. Apart from the $15,000 processing fee, corporate sponsors have to spend $2 million per employee. Hypothetically, Indian students too could benefit from a corporate gold card if it facilitates swift hiring and long-term planning for companies, but the high costs for corporate sponsors and implementation challenges for the visa pose serious question marks. Besides, it is not designed for mass hiring. Experts have warned that the Gold Card programme could sink the money of applicants or even lead to revocation of citizenship. If the gold card initiative is struck down in court, applicants may be at high risk of not getting their money back and to retrieve their investments they may have to legally fight against the US government. While it is an executive order, legal experts point out that it is the Congress that can create immigration law. Therefore, it may face legal as well as congressional challenges. Those aside, given the anti-immigration stance of the Trump administration its gold card also marks a shift in favour of the wealthiest applicants and against the most vulnerable. Investors are therefore advised to take into account practical considerations such as these hurdles, availability of visa, and per-person costs. For instance, Trump’s gold card donation isn’t refundable, whereas golden visa programmes in other countries are designed as investments that could yield returns.