By Annabelle Timsit
Thursday February 27, 2025

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced plans to sell U.S. residence permits for $5 million — the latest example of what experts call “residence by investment” programs, a popular tool of global mobility for the world’s wealthy elite.

Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the new initiative, which they labeled “gold card” after the existing “green card” permanent residency permit, will begin in two weeks and offer purchasers “a route to citizenship.”

It is not clear whether the $5 million price tag would come in the form of an investment, similar to an existing investment visa program known as EB-5, or a direct payment in exchange for residency. In either case, it would make the United States one of the most expensive countries in the world to obtain residence through wealth.

About 30 countries have successfully set up similar programs, according to Henley & Partners, an investment migration consulting firm. Most offer residence rights in exchange for investment, but some offer citizenship.

The idea of any wealthy person buying a passport has been controversial in the countries with investment migration programs, said Dimitry Kochenov, a professor at the Central European University Democracy Institute. Spain, for example, is ending its golden-visa program in April.

“In the majority of democratic settings, we presume that democracy is a closed world which should … be protected from all kinds of outsiders and that outsiders should be really special, meaning that they shouldn’t simply be buying their membership in our democracy,” Kochenov said.

Critics of these programs also say they create a two-tier immigration system in which wealthy people get preferential treatment, and can encourage corruption and money laundering.

Immigration experts have expressed skepticism that the Trump administration could enact the change without Congress, though the president insisted he could do so unilaterally. The EB-5 visa program was reauthorized in 2022 through September 2027. The White House did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for clarification.

The most and least expensive residence-by-investment programs

Of the countries and territories with residence-by-investment programs, some of the most expensive are found in New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong, which also have some of the more powerful passports in the world, offering visa-free travel to many countries.

New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus visa program offers residence to those who invest between 5 million and 15 million New Zealand dollars ($2.9 million to $8.6 million) over the course of four years in listed equities, philanthropy, managed funds or direct investments within the country. The program comes with additional strings attached: Applicants must prove they can speak English and are of good character and health, and they have to spend 117 days in New Zealand across the four-year period. After four years, they can apply for permanent residence.

Singapore’s Global Investor Program provides several options for investors seeking residence. They can demonstrate an investment of 10 million Singapore dollars ($7.5 million) into a new or existing business in Singapore, and prove that they are creating jobs, including for Singaporean citizens; they can invest $18.7 million into a fund that invests in Singapore-based companies; or they can set up a family office in Singapore with assets under management of at least $149.6 million.

Under Hong Kong’s New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme, investors must invest at least 10 million Hong Kong dollars ($1.3 million) in certain financial assets, including government debt securities and shares of companies that are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and traded in Hong Kong dollars.

Most of these programs offer residence in exchange for investment, meaning that applicants can hope to recoup their money over time or even make a profit. Others offer citizenship in exchange for a lump-sum payment, such as Malta, which requires a 600,000 euro ($630,500) to 750,000 euro ($788,000) donation, depending on the duration of residence.

Some citizenship and residence-by-investment programs are more of a bargain. For $400,000 worth of real estate, you can become a Turkish citizen, while a $250,000 investment can get you a passport from the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.

And the small Pacific island nation of Nauru offers citizenship in exchange for a $105,000 contribution to the country’s treasury, which it plans to use to fund climate resilience initiatives and other development projects.

What the new U.S. gold card could entail

It’s not clear how the Trump administration’s new gold-card program will work. He said Tuesday that the gold cards will help bring in “very high-level people” and that the money generated would help the United States reduce its deficit.

Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said all applicants will have to be vetted, though he didn’t specify what criteria would be used. “We’re going to make sure they’re wonderful, world-class global citizens,” he said. When a journalist asked Trump whether a Russian oligarch could qualify for the program, Trump said: “Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”

Lutnick said the gold card would seek to fix some of the issues with the lower-priced EB-5 visa program, which requires investors to commit between $800,000 and $1,050,000 to a new business and create at least 10 full-time jobs. He said the EB-5 was “full of nonsense, make-believe and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low-priced.” U.S. lawmakers have in recent years said that the program opens the door to money laundering and individuals who represent a national security risk. Obtaining the visa can take a long time, especially for applicants from certain countries such as China.

“Let’s be honest, it’s not a well-functioning immigration system,” Kochenov said. “Simplifying it in order to reap the benefits based on the special position of the U.S. in the world is something that is absolutely fundamental.”

Kristin Surak, an associate professor of political sociology at the London School of Economics, said Trump was probably overestimating the interest there would be in the gold card. When Australia and Britain had similar golden-visa programs at high price points, the countries typically got less than 1,000 applications a year, said Surak, who wrote the book “The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires.”

Dominic Volek of Henley & Partners said that since Trump’s announcement, his firm’s “phones have been ringing off the hook,” mainly from clients wishing to accelerate their applications for EB-5 visas due to fear that the program will be discontinued. “It’s less interest in the gold card itself because I think there is still a way to go in terms of any type of legislative framework or enactment. … It’s really very vague at this stage,” he said.

One factor that could deter interest in Trump’s gold card is the U.S. system of worldwide taxation: Any U.S. green-card holder or citizen is subject to U.S. taxes, even if they do not reside in the United States.

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.