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Only 338 people have submitted requests for Donald Trump’s $1mn Gold Card visa, the scheme for expedited US residency, that was launched last year with great fanfare.
In a court filing, justice department officials wrote that the programme had “not impacted the processing” of other visas, which have attracted tens of thousands of applications.
The officials wrote that 165 people had paid the $15,000 visa processing fee and 59 had moved to a subsequent stage with the Department of Homeland Security, which is vetting applicants along with the state department.
Last week, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick testified before Congress that just one person had been approved for the expedited visa, while “hundreds” were “in the queue”. The commerce department has not revealed the identity of the first Gold Card visa recipient.
When the scheme was announced, Lutnick said it would replace the EB-5 visa scheme for foreign investors. He later said 200,000 visas could net $1tn for the Treasury department.
“Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card,” Trump said at the programme’s launch. “They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people.”
The scheme has been challenged in a lawsuit by the American Association of University Professors, which claims the Gold Card programme unlawfully replaces the existing merit-based system and instead sells visas to the wealthy.
Lutnick has said the initial idea for the visa came from billionaire Trump donor John Paulson as a way to raise government revenue and help it pay down its $37tn national debt.
In March 2025, the commerce secretary told the All-In podcast that he had “sold a thousand” visas, which he dubbed the Trump Card, and said the president thought he could sell a million at $5mn each.
“That’s $5tn,” Lutnick told the podcasters.
In June of last year, the commerce department launched the trumpcard.gov website for would-be applicants to provide basic contact information, including their name, email address and region of the world. Lutnick told the FT that nearly 70,000 people quickly expressed interest in the visa.
In December, the administration reduced the price of the Gold Card to $1mn, saying it would buy “US residency in record time”. The government website also pitched a Trump Platinum Card “coming soon” for $5mn, which would allow the holder “to spend up to 270 days in the United States without being subject to US taxes on non-US income”.
In January, rapper Nicki Minaj thanked Trump for giving her a “free” Gold Card visa. Officials later clarified to The New York Times that it was a “memento” and that Minaj was already a legal permanent resident who could apply for citizenship.
A representative for DHS referred the FT to the commerce department, which did not respond to requests for comment.