Trump's Gold Card Visa Has One Approval After Six Months. Here Is What the Program Actually Is.

The thing most people are getting wrong about this program

The Gold Card is described in a few different ways depending on who is explaining it. The Trump administration calls it a new path to permanent residency that will generate $1 trillion for the US government. Critics call it a pay-to-play green card. Immigration lawyers describe it more carefully: an executive-order-created program that has never been codified by Congress and whose legal foundation is being challenged in federal court.

Executive Order 14351, signed September 19, 2025, created the Gold Card. The mechanism is a $1 million 'gift' to the U.S. government — not an investment in a US business, not a job-creating contribution, just a transfer to the Treasury — in exchange for priority consideration for lawful permanent residence. The program launched on December 11, 2025.

The legal basis separates it immediately from the existing EB-5 immigrant investor program. Congress created EB-5 through statute in 1990. The Gold Card exists through an executive order. The practical consequences of that distinction are significant and are currently being litigated in a DC federal courthouse.

What the application actually looks like, step by step

The process is more involved than the program's coverage suggests. It does not start with writing a $1 million check.

First, you register on trumpcard.gov, a White House website. You submit initial information and wait for confirmation that your submission has been accepted. After that confirmation, you pay a $15,000 vetting fee to DHS — separate from, and before, the $1 million gift. It covers background screening and identity verification. Once DHS completes vetting, you create or log in to a myUSCIS online account and file Form I-140G, the Immigrant Petition for the Gold Card Program, electronically. There is no paper filing option. The $1 million gift comes after the petition is approved.

For companies sponsoring employees, the gift requirement is $2 million per sponsored employee, not $1 million. The $15,000 vetting fee applies per applicant in both cases. Gold Card applicants must be currently admissible to the United States and must not have committed a crime of moral turpitude.

Six months in, the numbers are nowhere near the promise

When the administration launched the Gold Card in December 2025, it projected $1 trillion in revenue. Here is where things stand as of June 2026.

According to DHS data, 338 people have submitted Gold Card applications. Of those, 165 have paid the $15,000 vetting fee, generating roughly $2.475 million in fee revenue. On April 23, 2026, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testified before Congress that exactly one person had received an approved Gold Card.

One approval from 338 applications reflects a program still working through its own front-end vetting pipeline, not necessarily a prediction of failure. But the May 29, 2026 Federal Register notice soliciting public comments on the I-140G form — with a June 29 deadline — signals that the administrative machinery is still being refined. Changes to the form often precede changes to the underlying requirements, and the 173 people who registered but have not paid the vetting fee may be watching those changes before deciding whether to proceed.

Why it matters that this is not EB-5

The Gold Card and EB-5 both put a dollar amount on a US green card. The structural differences between them matter enormously for anyone trying to evaluate which path makes sense.

Congress created the EB-5 program in 1990. The EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 updated the minimum investment to $800,000 for rural or high-unemployment designated projects. EB-5 requires the investment to flow into a new commercial enterprise that creates at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying US workers. Once an EB-5 petition is filed, federal statute provides explicit grandfathering: if the rules change after you file, your case is adjudicated under the rules in effect when you filed.

The Gold Card has no equivalent protections. The $1 million goes directly to the US Treasury — not to a business, not to a fund, not to any job-creating enterprise. There is no job creation requirement. The program exists by executive order, which means the next administration can modify or rescind it. There is no statutory language protecting applicants who are mid-process when an administration changes. EB-5 investments are sometimes partially recoverable depending on project structure. A Gold Card gift is not recoverable — it is a one-way transfer to the government.

The federal lawsuit that could end it

In early February 2026, the American Association of University Professors, joined by a group of immigrant professionals, filed a complaint in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The case challenges the Gold Card on two grounds.

The first argument is constitutional authority. Immigration categories — who qualifies for a green card and under what conditions — are defined by Congress through the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Gold Card effectively creates a new immigrant category with its own eligibility criteria through executive order. The plaintiffs argue the executive branch cannot do that unilaterally.

The second argument is procedural: the Administrative Procedure Act requires agencies to run notice-and-comment rulemaking before creating substantive rules that affect people's legal rights. The Gold Card program launched without that process — the application portal opened before any public rulemaking period on the eligibility standards. The case is pending as of June 2026. No injunction has been issued. Whether the program's legal authority survives the challenge is unresolved.

The Platinum Card, which needs Congress

The administration has separately described a Platinum Card tier at $5 million. The main differentiator is a specific tax benefit: Platinum Card holders would be allowed to spend up to 270 days per year in the United States without triggering US tax residency on their non-US income.

Under current US tax law, the substantial presence test makes you a US tax resident on worldwide income if you are present for 183 days or more in a calendar year. Raising that threshold to 270 days requires modifying the Internal Revenue Code — which only Congress can do. The Platinum Card has been proposed but has not been enacted as of June 2026. It is a plan, not a program.

What this means if you are tracking priority dates

The Gold Card does not affect the queue for employment-based green cards. It is aimed at ultra-high-net-worth foreign nationals willing to give the US government $1 million, not at H-1B holders, EB-2 filers, or NIW self-petitioners navigating the backlog. The volume of Gold Card approvals is currently too low to have any measurable effect on wait times in the EB-1 or EB-2 categories where Gold Card recipients are counted.

Watch the DC district court case. An injunction would halt the program entirely. Watch what USCIS does after the June 29 comment period closes — form changes to I-140G may signal shifts in how the program processes applicants. And if you are a high-net-worth investor genuinely comparing Gold Card to EB-5, factor in the asymmetry in legal protection before paying the $15,000 vetting fee to start the process.

This article is informational only and does not constitute legal advice. The Gold Card program involves immigration and tax considerations specific to each applicant's situation. Consult a licensed immigration attorney before making any decision about the Gold Card, EB-5, or any other investor immigration pathway.