President Trump has announced a new “gold card” immigration plan, allowing wealthy individuals to buy U.S. residency and a pathway to citizenship for $5 million, with the hope of using the revenue to pay off America’s $36 trillion national debt.
The plan, which would replace the existing EB-5 visa program, aims to attract high-net-worth individuals and companies while offering tax benefits, though details are slim.
The gold card would replace America’s existing EB-5 visa program, which requires foreign investors to pledge $1,050,000 in capital to an existing commercial enterprise plus an additional $800,000 for targeted areas of employment.
The new, more expensive, gold card program would attract “wonderful world-class global citizens,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
President Trump also envisioned companies buying the cards to retain talented individuals, explaining that “they will pay to get people in.”
Speaking of investment of graduates the President indicates that companies will want to buy cards to keep graduates explaining “Since today, graduates from the Wharton School of Finance, Harvard, Stanford, or any college, and nobody knows if you can even go and work for a company, all these companies that want to get people to work for them will be able to buy a card … for the people that are number one in that class at top schools.”
High-net-worth individuals who purchased gold cards would not have to pay tax in the U.S. on income accumulated outside of the States but would pay full taxes like on investments within the country.
With a price tag of $20 million to purchase gold cards for a family of four, President Trump says he is aiming at a key issue facing the American economy: The national debt.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that between 2040 and 2045 the debt-GDP ratio will hit between 175% and 200% under current policy.
This could prompt what economists have called a “market rebellion,” when purchasers of the debt fear they will never be repaid and bid up the interest rates the U.S. pays on the debt—or stop buying the debt at all.
For Trump to hit the 10 million benchmark he would need to attract nearly half the world’s millionaire population to purchase a card—and the majority are already in the U.S.
A Capgemini study released last year found that there were 22.8 million millionaires across the globe in 2023—an increase of 5.1% from the year prior.
Yet 7.43 million of those high-net-worth individuals are already U.S. citizens, meaning the White House would have to attract the vast majority of remaining millionaires. To buy a gold card, mere millionaire status is not enough—one person would need to be worth at least $5 million.
