Trump Gold Card Requirements: What Nobody Tells You About Buying a $1M Green Card

September 19th. That was the day. Executive Order 14351 dropped and my practice exploded. Sixteen years I’ve been doing EB-5 work, which already felt borderline unethical if I’m being honest. Rich people essentially buying residency through investments. But this Gold Card program? Whole different level of directness.

Last week—literally Thursday afternoon—this guy calls. He’d already wired a million bucks to Commerce. Just saw the news, went online, paid. Then rings me up asking whether he needs to start hiring Americans now. I’m like, no dude, you just bought permanent residency. That’s it. You’re done. He seemed almost disappointed there wasn’t more to it.

So yeah. Welcome to 2026, where Trump Gold Card requirements basically mean: show us a million dollars, pass a background check, get your green card. I’ve filed seven applications now. Three approved. Two still in vetting. One rejected (guy had some sketchy Cayman Islands banking stuff). One withdrew after realizing his wife and two kids would each need their own million—oops, should’ve read the fine print.

Let me walk you through how this actually works. Not the sanitized version you see on law firm websites. The real deal.

What Even Is This Program?

Okay, simplest version: you wire one million dollars to the U.S. Treasury. It’s a gift. Not a loan, not an investment, not getting paid back ever. Just gone. Poof.

What do you get? Assuming you’re not a criminal or terrorist (we’ll get to that), you get lawful permanent resident status. A green card. Same one everyone else gets, just faster and without needing a job offer or extraordinary ability or whatever.

There’s actually three flavors. Regular individual Gold Card is the million-dollar one. Corporate sponsors—like tech companies bringing over engineers—they pay $2 million per person. Which sounds insane until you realize they were already spending $800K on equity packages anyway, so what’s another million or two to skip the H-1B lottery nightmare, right?

Then there’s this Platinum Card thing everyone keeps bugging me about. Five million bucks. Comes with some wild tax stuff that honestly deserves its own section because it’s complicated and most people get it wrong.

Timeline? If everything goes smooth—clean background, low-demand country, organized paperwork—maybe under a year total. My fastest case was nine weeks from application to approval. Fastest. Guy was Norwegian, clean as a whistle, money came from selling his biotech company with perfect documentation. Boom, done.

Slowest? Still waiting at month five because dude has business dealings in Iran, Russia, and North Korea. I told him upfront this was gonna be rough. He didn’t listen. Now he’s paying me hourly to argue with DHS about why his shipping company isn’t actually violating sanctions. Fun times.

Compare that to EB-5 where you’re looking at three years minimum. Sometimes five or six if you’re unlucky or from China. That’s what Trump Gold Card requirements are really selling: speed and certainty.

Trump Gold Card Requirements: Who Actually Qualifies?

Here’s where it gets weird compared to normal immigration. Traditional visas care about your education, your skills, your job experience. Can you contribute to America? Do you speak English? Where’d you go to school?

Trump Gold Card Requirements? Doesn’t care about any of that. Don’t speak a word of English? Fine. Never finished high school? Whatever. Never set foot in America before? Totally irrelevant.

The qualifications needed to qualify for a Trump Gold Card are actually very simple: first off, you must have money available to spend and second, you must not have a criminal background. That is all there is to it.

The Money Part (More Complicated Than You Think)

The amount of money needed for the Trump Gold Card is actually more complicated than some would think. Yes, you need to have a million dollars available as cash, but actually having the cash is not the difficult part.  The difficult part is proving to the Department of Homeland Security where that money is coming from. 

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS for short, requires that we have everything that they would require to track your financial history.  This includes tax returns going back 5 years and possibly further (7 – 10 years) if there has been anything abnormal on your taxes previously, including bank statements showing how the money originated.  So don’t just tell them you’ve got a million bucks sitting in your account when they ask for proof of where the funds have come from, actually show them how that money came to be in your account.

Sold a company? Great, need the purchase agreement, wire transfer confirmations, tax filings showing you reported the income. Inherited money? Gonna need estate documents, probate court records, proof the inheritance was legal and properly taxed.

I had this crypto guy last month. Made millions from Bitcoin he bought back in 2016. Had to hire blockchain forensic analysts to trace every transaction back to the original purchases. Eleven thousand dollars that cost him, just for the report. And DHS still pushed back twice asking for additional verification.

Another client—old European money that passed through family trusts in Luxembourg, Panama, and the Bahamas over three generations. We spent forty billable hours, I kid you not, just organizing the documentation trail across three different legal systems. Her trust attorneys didn’t even have half the records we needed. Had to petition courts in two countries.

What are they looking for? Money laundering. Corruption proceeds. Tax evasion. Drug money. If your wealth story doesn’t add up cleanly on paper, you’re cooked. And I don’t care how legitimate your money actually is. If the paper trail is messy, if there are gaps, if something doesn’t quite line up? Denied. They won’t even give you a chance to explain.

Background Checks (They’re Not Messing Around)

DHS runs the exact same vetting on Gold Card applicants as everyone else trying to immigrate. INTERPOL criminal database checks. Financial crime watchlists. Terrorism screening databases. It’s thorough as hell.

Minor stuff from way back usually gets a pass. DUI from college twenty years ago? Probably fine. Bar fight in your twenties? Eh, whatever. But fraud? Violence? Drug trafficking? You’re out. No amount of money fixes that.

Some things are automatic deal-breakers no matter how rich you are. Terrorism connections, espionage, war crimes, genocide participation. Obviously. But also things like significant fraud convictions, organized crime ties, human trafficking. Hard stops.

I’ve got this one client—Singaporean tech executive, runs legitimate software companies, pays all his taxes, squeaky clean personal life. But he’s got dual citizenship with a sanctioned country. Took nineteen weeks to clear vetting while DHS verified he had zero connections to that government. Nineteen weeks for a guy who hasn’t even visited that country in twelve years. But that’s how they operate.

Trump Gold Card Requirements: Application Process (The Real Steps)

Alright, you want to know what actually happens? Here’s the play-by-play.

Step One: TrumpCard.gov Registration

Only utilize the official trumpcard.gov website; please do not use any other websites. I have observed numerous websites that are impersonating the official website and are attempting to collect “application assistance fees”. It is ridiculous!

When you go to the official website, you will be required to enter your name, birth date, passport number and current address. The process should take about one hour if you are remotely organized. However, the website times out after twenty minutes of inactivity. I witnessed one individual lose their whole application due to the time they spent on lunch! Didn’t save. Had to start completely over. Save constantly.

Then you pay the $15,000 DHS processing fee. Credit card or ACH bank transfer. This money is non-refundable. Like, completely gone whether you get approved or denied or withdraw your application. Make peace with that $15K before you click submit.

Oh, and if you’re paying by credit card, call your bank first. I’ve had three clients whose cards flagged the payment as potential fraud. One guy’s card got frozen and he had to wait four days for a replacement before he could resubmit. Just a heads up.

Step Two: Form I-140G (Where It Gets Real)

About a week after you register, USCIS emails you to file Form I-140G through your online account. This is where Trump Gold Card requirements get detailed and kind of invasive.

They want your complete employment history for the last twenty years. Not just “worked at XYZ Corp 2015-2018.” They want job titles, responsibilities, supervisor names and contact information, reasons for leaving. Everything.

Educational background from high school forward. Every degree, every institution, graduation dates. If you’ve got transcripts, include them. If not, they might ask for them later which delays everything.

Any government or military positions you’ve ever held anywhere in the world. Even if it was thirty years ago, even if it was minor, disclose it. Client of mine failed to mention he’d done mandatory military service in his home country for six months when he was 19. DHS found out anyway (they always do) and flagged his application for additional review. Cost him two extra months.

Then comes the financial disclosure section. Every. Single. Account. Bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement funds, crypto wallets. Account numbers, current balances, institution names. They’re building a complete financial profile to verify your source of funds.

If you’re going corporate sponsorship route, the company needs to submit three years of tax returns, annual reports, and audited financial statements if they have them. Smaller companies without audited financials can submit unaudited but expect DHS to push back and ask questions.

This form is brutal. Plan on spending a full day gathering everything you need, then another day or two actually filling it out. Don’t rush. Mistakes here create delays and sometimes denials.

Step Three: Vetting (Hurry Up and Wait)

After you submit I-140G, you wait while they run background checks. Simple cases—clean record, straightforward finances, low-risk country—clear in six to ten weeks. More complicated situations can stretch to four, five, six months.

Sometimes they come back requesting additional documents. Specific bank statements from certain time periods. Explanation letters for unusual transactions. Supplemental tax records. When they ask, respond immediately. Every day you delay adds a day to processing. Seriously.

What are they actually checking during this time? Running your name through criminal databases worldwide. Cross-referencing your financial records with IRS data and international tax authorities. Looking for red flags like unexplained income spikes, connections to sanctioned individuals or entities, prior immigration violations, business dealings in sketchy jurisdictions.

Step Four: Payment and Final Processing

You clear vetting, you get payment instructions. Wire transfer only. No checks, no cash, no crypto (yeah, people have asked). The money has to come from accounts you disclosed in your application. They check this. Don’t try to be cute and send it from some account you didn’t list.

After Commerce Department confirms they’ve received your million bucks, you move to consular processing. That means filing Form DS-260G with State Department, paying additional fees (around $1,200 total), and scheduling your mandatory visa interview at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.

The interview is not optional. They will verify your background again, ask about your plans in America, double-check your documentation. Bring original everything. certificates of birth, police clearance, and test results. If you’re missing even one document, they’ll reschedule and you start the waiting game over.

Pro tip: some embassies are backed up six months for interview slots. Others can see you in two weeks. If you’re flexible on location, shop around. I had a Brazilian client who couldn’t get an interview in São Paulo for five months, flew to Buenos Aires, got one in three weeks.

Gold Card vs EB-5 (What’s Actually Different)

Everyone wants me to compare these. Makes sense—both are essentially pay-for-residency programs. But they work totally differently and carry different risks.

EB-5 runs $800K for targeted employment areas, $1.05M everywhere else. But that’s an investment, not a gift. Your money goes into a commercial enterprise—usually real estate development or a business through a regional center. The project has to create at least ten American jobs. If successful, you might get your principal back in five to seven years, sometimes with modest returns.

I’ve had EB-5 clients get their money back. I’ve also had clients lose everything when projects failed. It’s a real investment with real risk.

Trump Gold Card requirements are way more blunt. You give the government one million dollars. It’s gone. Forever. Not coming back. No investment returns. No job creation requirements. No monitoring whether some hotel project in Ohio actually hired the required number of people.

Timeline matters though. EB-5 typically takes three to five years start to finish. Sometimes way longer if you’re from China or India because of backlogs. Gold Card should wrap up in under a year if you’re from a country without visa number issues.

Here’s the thing nobody’s talking about though: EB-5 has congressional authorization that runs through September 2027. It’s actual law, written into the U.S. Code. Even if the next administration hates it, killing EB-5 requires Congress to repeal the statute.

Gold Card exists purely through executive order. Next president could kill it with another executive order. Courts could strike it down as executive overreach. There’s zero statutory protection, zero grandfathering clause.

That’s the grandfathering risk everyone ignores. EB-5 applicants have legal protection. Gold Card applicants? You’re betting this thing survives politically and legally long enough for you to get your green card. With a million bucks on the line.

Trump Gold Card Requirements: Platinum Card Tax Benefits (Everyone Gets This Wrong)

Okay, this section is important because I’ve had to correct so much misinformation about how the Platinum Card actually works.

Regular Gold Card Tax Hit

When you get a standard Gold Card, you become a U.S. permanent resident. Great for living and working here. But here’s the catch: you’re automatically a U.S. tax resident. That means IRS wants to know about every dollar you make worldwide. Not just U.S. income. Everything.

Salary from your job in London? Taxable. Stock dividends from investments in Tokyo? Taxable. Rental income from properties in Dubai? Taxable. Capital gains from selling your business in Mumbai? You get the idea.

Let’s say you earn $900,000 annually from foreign sources. Federal tax bill on that is gonna run somewhere around $310,000 depending on your deductions. Every single year you hold that green card. Over ten years? Three million dollars in taxes just on your foreign income.

For some people that’s fine. You want citizenship eventually, you’re willing to pay the tax price. But for others—especially people earning serious money abroad who just want U.S. access without the tax hammer—that’s a deal-breaker.

How Platinum Changes the Math

Platinum Card costs five million instead of one million. What do you get for that extra four million?

You can spend up to 270 days per year in the United States without becoming a U.S. tax resident on your foreign income. Read that again. Nine months in America, zero U.S. taxes on money you earn outside the country.

How does this work legally? U.S. tax code has something called the substantial presence test. Basically, if you’re physically present in the U.S. more than 183 days in a year (they use this weighted formula with the prior two years too, it’s complicated), you’re considered a tax resident.

Platinum Card creates a specific exemption from the substantial presence test. You’re allowed up to 270 days without triggering tax residency. It’s written right into the executive order.

Real example: I’ve got an Argentine client who owns businesses throughout Latin America and Europe. Earns about $3.5 million annually, all foreign-source income. With a regular Gold Card, he’d owe approximately $1.2 million per year in U.S. federal taxes on that foreign income. Every year.

With a Platinum Card? Zero U.S. taxes on that $3.5 million as long as he manages his days and stays under 270 annually. He pays an extra $4 million upfront but saves $1.2 million per year in taxes.

Do the math: breaks even in about 3.3 years. After that it’s pure savings. Over ten years he saves eight million dollars in taxes. Makes that extra $4 million look pretty reasonable, doesn’t it?

Who Should Get Platinum?

I’ve got five clients on the Platinum waitlist right now. They all fit a similar profile: earning substantial income outside the U.S., want significant American presence for business or lifestyle, absolutely do not want to get crushed by worldwide taxation.

But understand what you’re giving up. Platinum Card doesn’t lead to citizenship like Gold Card does. It’s not traditional permanent residency. Think of it more like an ultra-premium long-term visa that lets you spend nine months a year in the U.S. while keeping your tax home elsewhere.

There’s also this restriction: you can’t have ever been subject to U.S. taxation on worldwide income before. Already have a green card? Ineligible. U.S. citizen who renounced? Still ineligible. This is strictly for foreign nationals who’ve never had U.S. tax obligations on global income.

Does the math work? For the right person, absolutely. But you need serious foreign income for the numbers to justify that extra $4 million. If you’re earning $500K abroad, probably not worth it. At $2-3 million foreign income? Platinum starts making financial sense.

Gold vs Platinum: Quick Comparison

Since literally everyone asks me to compare these, here’s a table:

Pretty clear, right? Your choice depends on whether you want citizenship eventually or just tax-optimized U.S. access.

Trump Gold Card Requirements: Corporate Sponsorship (Tech Companies Love This)

Tech companies discovered this program about five seconds after it launched. My phone exploded with calls from startups asking about sponsoring engineers from India, designers from China, product managers from Europe.

Corporate Gold Card costs $2 million per employee plus that same $15,000 processing fee. Sounds absurd at first. But these companies were already planning equity compensation packages worth $800K to $1.5 million to recruit top-tier talent from abroad. Throw another couple million at it to guarantee permanent residency immediately without H-1B lottery risk? Starts making business sense.

The clever part—and what makes this attractive—is transferability. Employee quits or gets fired? Company can transfer their Gold Card slot to a new employee for 5% of the original contribution plus background check costs. That’s $100,000 plus maybe $5K-10K for vetting. Way better than eating the full $2 million loss and starting from scratch.

There’s also a 1% annual maintenance fee. So $20,000 per year per sponsored employee on top of everything else. Not cheap. But for companies desperate to lock down scarce specialized talent, it beats gambling on H-1B lottery odds every year.

I’ve got one client—AI startup in San Francisco—that sponsored three employees this way. $6 million total plus fees. Their reasoning? They need these specific people, they can’t risk losing them to visa issues, and $2 million per person is cheaper than the equity dilution they’d need to offer to keep them happy long-term. Cold calculation, but it makes sense from their perspective.

Trump Gold Card Requirements: What Can Go Sideways (The Actual Risks)

Time for real talk about problems with Trump Gold Card requirements that most people don’t think about until it’s too late.

Visa Number Bottlenecks Still Exist

Gold Card doesn’t create new visa numbers out of thin air. Congress sets annual limits: 40,040 for EB-1, another 40,040 for EB-2. You’re just jumping to the front of those existing lines.

For applicants from countries with low demand—Norway, Australia, Brazil—this barely matters. But India and China? Massive existing backlogs. Even jumping the queue might leave you waiting twelve, eighteen, sometimes twenty months for a number to become available.

Commerce Department openly acknowledges this now. Their official guidance literally says applicants from certain countries “may experience wait times of up to a year or more.” Translation: you can pay your million dollars, get approved, and still sit around waiting because all the visa numbers are gone.

I’ve got an Indian client who got approved in October. Still waiting for a visa number. Paid his million in full. Just… sitting there. Frustrating as hell.

The Grandfathering Problem (This Is Big)

This is the risk everyone glosses over and it drives me crazy because it’s huge.

EB-5 program has congressional authorization that runs through September 2027. It’s codified in actual law, written into the United States Code. Even if the next administration absolutely hates EB-5, killing it requires Congress to pass legislation repealing the statute. That’s a high bar.

Trump Gold Card Requirements? Pure executive order. Next president signs a different executive order on day one of their administration, program dies instantly. Federal court decides the original order exceeded executive authority, program gets struck down. There’s zero statutory protection, zero grandfathering clause for pending applications.

What happens to your million bucks if the program gets invalidated mid-application? Great question. Nobody knows. The official guidance is completely silent on refunds. The $15,000 processing fee is explicitly non-refundable, which strongly suggests the larger contribution isn’t either.

I tell every single client this is a calculated gamble. If the program survives long enough for you to get your green card, fantastic. But you need to treat that million like money you can afford to lose completely. If losing it would seriously hurt you financially, this isn’t the right move.

Revocation Scenarios

Your Gold Card status can get yanked for standard inadmissibility grounds. Commit a serious crime, engage in terrorism, lie on your application. Same rules that apply to every other green card holder apply here.

I saw one case—won’t name names—where the applicant significantly understated his total assets during source-of-funds verification. Trying to make the million-dollar contribution look more significant than it actually was relative to his wealth. DHS caught the discrepancy during routine post-approval review. Revoked his status. Kept his million dollars.

Be completely honest. The vetting is thorough enough that discrepancies surface eventually. Better to disclose everything upfront than hide something and lose everything later.

Does This Actually Make Sense for You?

It is totally dependent on your personal circumstances and your own definition of $1 million.

For those who have an ample net worth, require a U.S. permanent resident card, do not fit into traditional employment workers, and are not interested in dealing with the hassle associated with the EB5 program, obtaining a Trump Gold Card would be the easiest way to ensure a quick route to U.S. residency because it eliminates the uncertainty factor. For many people, that is worth the cost of $1 million

For families though, the math gets brutal fast. Every person needs their own million-dollar contribution. Family of four? That’s $4 million plus fees. At that price point you should seriously evaluate alternatives like Portugal’s Golden Visa program or various Caribbean citizenship-by-investment options.

The sweet spot I’m seeing: individual or couple high earners with substantial foreign-source income who want eventual citizenship. They have liquid capital. They don’t meet extraordinary ability criteria. They don’t want to babysit an EB-5 investment for five years. For them, writing the check makes sense.

How to Actually Apply (Practical Steps)

If you’re seriously considering this, here’s what you need to do.

First: hire an immigration attorney who specializes in employment-based visas. Not your general business lawyer. Not someone who mainly handles family immigration. Find somebody who regularly files EB-1 and EB-2 cases and who has successfully processed Gold Card applications. This program is too new and too expensive to figure out yourself.

Second: start gathering financial documentation immediately. Tax returns for the past five years minimum. Bank statements documenting how your money accumulated over time. If you sold assets, get the transaction records. If you inherited wealth, get estate documents and probate records. This process takes weeks when done properly.

Third: Go to the official website TrumpCard.gov to create your own account, fill out an application, and pay the $15,000 fee using a bank account that you will identify in your final application.

Fourth: when the I-140G notification arrives, work closely with your attorney on thorough completion. Budget two full days for information gathering, another day or two actually filling out the form. Don’t rush this.

Fifth: be patient during the vetting process but responsive to any document requests. When they ask for something, provide it immediately. Follow payment instructions exactly when you get approval. No creative approaches, no trying to be clever.

FAQs About Trump Gold Card Requirements

Can my spouse and kids come with me?

Yeah, but each person needs their own separate million-dollar contribution plus $15,000 fee. Your spouse? $1 million. Each kid under 21? Another million each. Family of four runs $4.06 million all-in. That’s usually where the conversation ends for most families.

How long does this really take?

Ten to fourteen months for straightforward cases from countries without visa backlogs. Add six to twenty months if you’re from India or China due to visa number availability issues. Throw in a few more months if you’ve got complicated financial situations or any security concerns.

What if they reject my application?

The $15,000 processing fee is gone no matter what happens. If you get rejected before paying the million-dollar contribution, at least you haven’t lost that. If you get rejected after paying? Current guidance doesn’t address refunds at all, which almost certainly means you won’t get one back.

Can companies really transfer Gold Cards when employees leave?

Yep. Transfer to a replacement employee costs 5% of the original contribution—that’s $100,000—plus the cost of running new background checks on the replacement. Saves the company from spending another full $2 million on a new employee.

Do I need to speak English or have a college degree?

Nope. Trump Gold Card requirements completely ignore language ability and educational credentials. Just money and a clean background. That’s all they care about.

My Honest Take: Trump Gold Card Requirements

Look, I’m not here to argue whether selling green cards is good immigration policy. That’s way above my pay grade and honestly not my concern. My job is helping people navigate immigration law as it exists right now, today, in early 2026.

Trump Gold Card requirements create the most straightforward wealth-to-residency pipeline American immigration has ever seen. Period. If you have the money and you want U.S. residency without traditional complications, this works. It delivers.

But it’s not perfect. The legal uncertainty is very real—executive orders can disappear overnight. Visa backlogs still affect certain countries no matter how much you pay. The grandfathering risk is something you need to seriously consider.

Just make absolutely sure you understand all the risks completely, work with qualified legal counsel who’s actually done these cases before, and document every single thing meticulously before you commit. Because that’s way too much money to gamble on without knowing exactly what you’re getting into.