President Donald Trump wants to put the green back in “green card.” This week, he announced plans to grant permanent residency with a citizenship pathway to deep-pocketed foreigners willing to hand Uncle Sam $5 million—an immigration option he dubbed the “gold card.”
The idea of doling out green cards for greenbacks is not new: The US already has the EB-5 visa, a program that gives international investors and their immediate family members green cards if they invest at least $800k into a US business that creates 10 full-time jobs. And dozens of countries offer similar investment-immigration programs, including sought after destinations like Austria, Switzerland, and Greece.
But the gold cards are different: Aspiring Americans would pay $5 million directly into federal coffers as opposed to investing in a US business. That is a steep entry fee, especially when weighed against dozens of cheaper golden visa or citizenship options around the globe:
- Italy offers a path to permanent residency in exchange for investing as little as $260,000 in a local startup.
- A relatively humble investment of $62k is enough for permanent residency in the European Union nation of Latvia.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the gold cards will roll out in two weeks, while deriding EB-5 visas as lacking proper oversight and yielding dubious results. Lutnick joined Trump at a press conference to tout the $5 million fee as boosting government revenues and helping to reduce the deficit, while infusing the economy with jobs and taxes paid by Forbes list newcomers.
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