On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that his long-promised “gold card,” which would grant legal status and eventually lead to U.S. citizenship to individuals for $1 million and corporations for twice that amount per foreign-born employee, would officially go on sale.
As Mr. Trump announced the program’s launch in front of business executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, an application website went live. It is intended to take the place of EB-5 visas, which Congress established in 1990 to attract foreign investment and were granted to individuals who invested around $1 million in a business with ten or more employees.
According to Mr. Trump, the new version will help the United States draw in and keep top talent while also bringing in money for the federal government. He has been pushing the gold card program for months. At one point, he proposed that each card would cost $5 million, but more recently, he changed it to $1 million and $2 million.
The President expected that billions would flow into a Treasury Department account “where we can do things positive for the country” and stated that any revenues received as part of the program will “go to the U.S. government.” The new scheme, which essentially offers perpetual legal residency with the possibility of citizenship, is essentially a green card.
Mr. Trump described it as “basically, a green card but much better.” “A much stronger path, much more powerful.”
The President did not address the program’s overall caps, which are in place under the present EB-5 program, or the conditions for job creation for submitting firms. Rather, he claimed to have heard grievances from corporate executives who were unable to hire exceptional graduates from American institutions due to their foreign nationality and lack of immigration permits.
Mr. Trump stated, “You can’t hire people from the best colleges because you don’t know whether or not you can keep the person.”
Closing the border between the United States and Mexico and promoting strict immigration laws have been the cornerstones of Mr. Trump’s political career. During the first ten or more months of his second administration, widespread immigration crackdowns and mass deportation campaigns were launched, targeting places like Charlotte and Los Angeles.
However, he has also come under fire from prominent figures in his “Make America Great Again” campaign for his repeated advocacy of allowing skilled immigrants to enter the country, something that the gold card program may make possible.
According to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the program will spend $15,000 on candidate screening, and the rigorous background check procedure will “make sure these people absolutely qualify to be in America.” According to him, businesses will be allowed to obtain more than one card, but only one person per card.
Additionally, Mr. Lutnick stated that Mr. Trump wanted to change the fact that existing green card holders make less than the typical American.
“So, the same visas, but now they’re just full of the best people,” Mr. Lutnick remarked.
Investor visas are widely available worldwide, with dozens of nations—including the UK, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada, and Italy—offering “golden visas” to affluent people.
The scheme, according to Mr. Trump, implies that the United States is “getting somebody great coming into our country because we think these will be some tremendous people.” He specifically mentioned top American college graduates from China, India, and France as potential recipients of gold cards.
He declared, “The companies are going to be very happy.”
