Trump’s Gold Card: America Turns Immigration Into a Luxury Product
Donald Trump has never been shy about rewriting the rules. But this time he has gone further than anyone imagined: he has turned America’s immigration system into a three-tiered luxury product, priced like an Amex card for the ultra-wealthy.
No more hiding behind meritocracy, job creation, or family ties. No more EB-5 investors anxiously waiting to see if their hotel project or regional center would actually produce the jobs they promised. This time it’s brutally simple: pay, and you get in.
The message is clear. America is open for business – but only if you’re bringing a briefcase stacked with millions.
The Three Cards
Trump announced his new framework on September 19th, 2025:
The Gold Card: $1 million buys you permanent residency. No job offers required, no “extraordinary ability” test, no years of waiting in line. Pay the money, pass a background check, and you’re in.
The Corporate Gold Card: $2 million per employee. Companies can buy these like chips in a casino, and here’s the kicker: they’re transferable. Fire one worker, slot another one in, keep the residency asset alive. For corporations, immigration becomes a permanent balance-sheet item.
The Platinum Card: $5 million, and you can spend up to 270 days in the United States without paying U.S. taxes on your foreign income. That’s nearly nine months of life in America, tax-free.
Trump signed the order in the Oval Office with his trademark bravado: “They’re going to spend a lot of money to come in. It’s going to raise billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars, which is going to go to reduce taxes, pay off debt, and for other good things.”
For once, he wasn’t exaggerating.
Why It’s Revolutionary
Let’s be blunt: there’s nothing new about “Golden Visa” programs. Portugal had one. Greece had one. Malta and Cyprus still sell passports and residence permits. But those were always investments – you bought property, you funded bonds, you invested in funds. In theory, your money came back.
The U.S. Gold Card is different. It’s not an investment. It’s a fee. A donation. A payment into the Treasury with no expectation of return.
That’s why the comparison with the EB-5 program is so stark. EB-5 required between $800,000 and $1.05 million in investment, plus the creation of ten American jobs. You tied your money to a project, you hoped it worked, and if it did, you got your green card. With Trump’s Gold Card, none of that matters. No jobs, no risk, no waiting. Just cash on the barrel.
The Tax Bombshell: Platinum Card
The most radical piece of this puzzle is the Platinum Card. For $5 million, you essentially buy the one thing the IRS has never given anyone: residency without taxation.
America’s tax system is famously aggressive. Spend more than 183 days a year in the country, and you’re a resident for tax purposes, on the hook for your worldwide income. Even permanent residents and citizens abroad face the same burden. There has never been an official carve-out – until now.
The Platinum Card lets you live in the U.S. for almost nine months each year while keeping your offshore holdings and non-U.S. income untouchable. For the global elite – the billionaires with trusts in the Caymans, real estate in London, or dividends pouring in from Singapore – this is a dream scenario.
In effect, Trump is selling a tax exemption to the world’s wealthy.
Immigration as a Corporate Asset
The Corporate Gold Card is another innovation. By making residency transferable, Trump is treating immigration not as a personal right but as a corporate asset class.
Picture a Fortune 500 tech company. They want to shuttle talent in and out of the U.S. under their control. Instead of navigating H-1B lotteries or visa backlogs, they buy a dozen Gold Cards. If a developer leaves, they transfer the slot to a new recruit. The card lives on, the talent pipeline stays open.
This isn’t immigration policy. It’s asset securitization applied to people.
Killing the Old Routes
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick didn’t mince words. “In less than a month, the other visa Green Card categories are likely to be suspended, and this will be the model that people can come into the country.”
That means the EB-1 (extraordinary ability) and EB-2 (advanced degrees) categories – long seen as elite pathways – will be subsumed into this new pay-to-play model. The government will justify it by saying that a $1 million “gift” to America counts as proof of “national benefit.”
Let’s be clear: the Gold Card isn’t just another option. It’s designed to replace the system altogether.
Legal Uncertainty
But can Trump actually pull this off? There are serious questions:
Constitutional authority: Immigration categories are defined by Congress. An executive order can’t simply rewrite them. Expect lawsuits.
The “gift” language: Calling payments “donations” is a legal sleight of hand. Courts may decide this is just a visa sale by another name.
Equal protection: Creating a tax-advantaged class of super-residents could be challenged as fundamentally unfair.
Still, Trump thrives on pushing the boundaries. By the time the courts catch up, thousands of Gold Cards may already be in circulation.
The Money Angle
Lutnick projected $100 billion in revenue. That requires either 100,000 Gold Cards or 20,000 Platinum Cards sold. Skeptics laugh at the numbers, but early registration figures suggest interest is real: 69,000 people signed up on the waitlist within days of announcement.
And remember, these are non-refundable contributions. The government isn’t managing projects or guaranteeing returns. Every dollar goes straight to the Treasury.
It’s the most efficient “fundraising” operation in U.S. immigration history.
The H-1B Contrast
At the same time, Trump slapped a $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas. That’s a death blow to the traditional skilled-worker pipeline. The message to tech firms is blunt: stop bringing in coders on cheap visas. If you want workers in the U.S., either hire Americans or buy a Corporate Gold Card.
For Silicon Valley, this is both a nightmare and an opportunity. The costs go up, but the flexibility is unprecedented.
What About E-2, E-1, and L-1 Visas?
So far, Trump’s executive order and the rollout of the Gold Card program have focused on permanent residency categories — particularly EB-5, and potentially EB-1 and EB-2 (including NIW). Those are the programs most at risk of being replaced or sidelined.
But what about the other visa types that so many entrepreneurs and companies rely on?
E-2 (Investor Visa): Popular with Europeans, especially Germans and Austrians, who set up U.S. companies and move over to run them. Will the Gold Card replace E-2? Unlikely. The E-2 doesn’t grant permanent residency, and it’s based on treaty arrangements. Trump could raise fees or tighten requirements, but the E-2 will probably survive — at least for now.
E-1 (Trader Visa): Even more niche, for companies that engage in significant trade between their home country and the U.S. There’s little political attention on this category, so it will likely continue unchanged.
L-1 (Intra-company Transfer): This one is interesting. For large companies, the new Corporate Gold Card could be an alternative to the L-1. Why navigate a complex visa system when you can buy permanent slots for employees? If Corporate Cards take off, demand for L-1s may collapse. But that doesn’t mean the L-1 will vanish overnight. It’s embedded in U.S. immigration law and used by thousands of companies that won’t pay Trump’s new price.
Speculation: Trump wants to kill EB-5, and maybe EB-2 NIW, because they can be replaced with a direct cash stream into the Treasury. E-2, E-1, and L-1 don’t generate that revenue in the same way. They may not disappear, but they could become second-class visas, overshadowed by the Gold and Platinum Cards.
Who Wins, Who Loses
Winners:
Ultra-wealthy global elites who want a U.S. base without tax residency.
Corporations who see immigration slots as long-term assets.
The U.S. Treasury, which pockets billions without lifting a finger.
Losers:
Skilled immigrants without millions to spend.
Families hoping for reunification through traditional categories.
The principle that America is built on merit and opportunity, not raw money.
Hubris and Reality
There’s also a fair amount of hubris baked into Trump’s plan. The idea that you can simply replace entire visa categories with a pay-to-play scheme is absurd. The United States needs foreign expertise. Without it, businesses shut down, startups collapse, and universities go bankrupt. America’s economy has always been fueled by talent from abroad. Pretending that only billionaires matter is self-defeating.
And let’s be honest: the world has options. If you’re a top expert in AI, biotech, or fintech, you don’t need the United States. You can move to Dubai, pay zero tax, and still spend 120–150 days a year in the U.S. on a visitor visa. That’s more than enough time to attend conferences, close deals, and maintain your networks.
How much time do you really want to spend in the U.S. anyway? The top tier of global talent is incredibly mobile. They have choices, and they won’t hesitate to take them. If the U.S. signals that it doesn’t want them—unless they pay a fortune—it will ultimately be America’s loss.
My Take
I’ve been working with remote teams around the world since the late 1990s. From the Philippines to Armenia, Ukraine to India, my offshore workforce has always been 10–20 times larger than my onshore staff.
Would I ever move these people to the U.S.? Absolutely not. That would destroy my competitive advantage.
Trump’s Gold Card doesn’t change that equation. In fact, by slapping a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, he’s accelerating the trend: companies will keep offshoring, not importing talent. And for those who do want people in the U.S., going forward the Gold Card could be the only viable path - at least this is what the US government seems to expect.
Should this become a reality, then what Trump has done is not just tweak immigration. He has reframed America itself. The U.S. is now officially saying: we are not a melting pot, we are a marketplace.
What now?
Trump’s Gold Card is audacious, cynical, and utterly American. It strips immigration of its old narratives and sells it as a luxury brand. Whether the courts uphold it or not, the symbolism is clear: America is for sale – but only to those who can pay.
For the rest, the message is equally blunt: build your life elsewhere.
Consultation – What This Means for You
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Could this Gold Card or even the Platinum Card work for me?” — then you’re already ahead of 99% of people. Most will just read the headlines and move on.
Here’s the reality:
For most individuals and even many companies, this is completely unattainable. Dropping $1–5 million just to secure a visa is out of the question. It’s far too expensive.
But look at the tech world. Venture capital and private equity money are flooding into startups. Some companies raise $50 million before they’ve even shipped a product. For a select few founders, executives, and investors, the Gold or Platinum Card could be a strategic route.
The Platinum Card is the real disruptor. If you’re running a business abroad, sitting on offshore holdings, or earning globally, the ability to spend nine months in the U.S. without triggering worldwide U.S. taxation is unprecedented.
Corporate Gold Cards turn immigration into an asset. For companies with serious U.S. ambitions and deep pockets, this could be the cleanest way to place key people on the ground.
The risks are just as big as the opportunities. Legal challenges, political backlash, or a future administration reversing course could leave early adopters stranded. This isn’t a “set it and forget it” play.
I’ve been advising clients on cross-border setups, U.S. structures, and Plan B strategies for decades. If you want to explore whether this program makes sense for you — or whether there are smarter ways to build your U.S. presence — reach out.
👉 Book a consultation and let’s go through your situation step by step. Better to plan properly now than to lose millions later.
