Trump's commerce secretary said he sold 1K 'gold card' visas in a day. Here's what we know

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U.S. President Donald Trump previously posited that his “gold card” visas could make $50 trillion.

Published March 27, 2025

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On March 20, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told hosts on the “All-In” business and technology podcast that “yesterday, I sold 1,000” of President Donald Trump’s proposed “gold card” visas — $5 million visas the government plans to sell to wealthy people living overseas who want a path to U.S. citizenship.

Lutnick further claimed that 37 million people outside the United States had the financial means to buy the visa.

At the 01:11:17 mark of the video below, the commerce secretary said: “About two weeks from today it goes out, OK. Elon’s building me the software right now and then out it goes. And, by the way, yesterday I sold a thousand.”

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The claim spread across social media to Facebook, X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers also inquired about the claim via email and searches on our website.

As previously reported, Trump first announced the visas during a Feb. 25, 2025, news conference. The president estimated the U.S. could make $50 trillion from 10 million visa sales at $5 million each.

Snopes reached out to the Department of Commerce for background on Lutnick’s claims — namely, confirmation on whether the department had already sold 1,000 “gold card” visas, on what date and the source of Lutnick’s claim that 37 million people outside the U.S. are able to buy the visa. We will update this article if the department replies.

Meanwhile, our previous report on Trump’s “gold card” visas found varying estimates for how many millionaires outside the U.S. would have the financial means to buy them, though none were as high as Lutnick’s 37 million figure.

Trump’s “gold card” visa, slated to replace the existing EB-5 visa, would give buyers a path to U.S. citizenship. 

On Feb. 25, Trump said:

We are going to be doing something else that’s going to be very good. We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card; this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card. They will be wealthy, they will be successful and they will be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people and we think it’s going to be extremely successful. Never been done before, anything like this, but it’s something that we’re going to be putting out over the next, would you say, two weeks?

During the news conference, Trump officials confirmed that the “gold card” visa would replace the existing EB-5 visa.

That visa offered a path to citizenship to people who made “necessary” investments (generally more than $1 million) in a “commercial enterprise” in the U.S. and planned to create or preserve 10 permanent jobs for U.S. workers. The path to citizenship usually starts with a green card. As such, Trump’s “gold card” visa would raise the price of a path to U.S. citizenship through financial investment from $1 million to $5 million.

Many countries, including Canada, also offer an investment visa similar to the EB-5 that Trump’s “gold card” would replace. At least 18 other countries have such “golden visas,” according to La Vida Golden Visas, a company that advises people on residency and citizenship through investment.

Laerke Christensen is a journalist based in London, England, with expertise in OSINT reporting.