By Abby Schultz

"Gold card" visas will be available for rich non-citizens to buy for $5 million by the end of the month, according to a Trump administration official.

Applicants for these visas that grant holders permanent U.S. residency will pay a $10,000 non-refundable deposit with their online application and will receive permanent residency within a month, according to the official. All applicants will be vetted before they are accepted.

"We won't be blinded by money," the official said. "We will continue to focus on strict vetting to ensure people we are letting into the country are not here to do harm."

The administration can offer the gold card, which the president has also called the Trump Card, within such a short time frame because it's creating the program through the use of existing visa categories, the official said.

Immigration attorneys have argued that the Immigration and Nationality Act would have to be amended by Congress to create a visa as it has been described over the past couple of months by administration officials. That description has included a provision exempting holders from paying taxes on income earned outside the U.S. -- an exemption that would require a revision to the Internal Revenue Code.

The administration official didn't have details on whether a different tax status would apply to gold card holders.

Unless they change the tax code, "the Trump card holder is just a plain old green card holder (i.e a U.S. person for tax purposes) and subject to worldwide U.S. taxation," David Lesperance, an immigration attorney, said in an email.

The administration may be avoiding amending immigration law by replacing the $800,000 minimum for the current EB-5 investment immigration program with a $5 million donation to the U.S. Treasury, "or they are creating a new category that stands besides EB-5 that may be faster for some nationalities," Lesperance said.

EB-5 (which stands for employment-based fifth preference) is a 35-year-old program that provides a path to permanent residency and citizenship through an investment of at least $800,000 in an economic development project. The program, which Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick initially said would be replaced with the gold card -- went through significant changes when it was reauthorized through bipartisan legislation in 2022, and was extended through 2027.

The status of EB-5 remains unclear, however. The administration official didn't have details on any changes to the program.

If it turns out that gold card holders are taxed on their worldwide income, "it's a non-starter," Lesperance said. Wealthy foreigners have other options for living in the U.S. on non-immigrant visas without paying taxes, he said.

Engineers working on Elon Musk's government efficiency initiative currently are building a website that will allow people to apply online, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Trump introduced the idea of a gold card in the Oval Office on Feb. 25. In his first cabinet meeting the next day, he said the goal would be to raise revenue to fund the national debt, saying "If we sell a million, that's $5 trillion dollars."

Experts who work with immigration by investment programs in countries across the world -- programs known as golden visas -- have argued there aren't a million individuals outside the U.S. with enough wealth to buy it.

The administration official said "many people have expressed interest" in the visa, including "a lot of corporations."

When Trump first introduced the card, he said companies such as Apple could buy them to facilitate U.S. residency for highly skilled workers.

Write to Abby Schultz at abby.schultz@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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April 18, 2025 13:11 ET (17:11 GMT)

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