Gimme Shelter:
Golden Visas, Golden Passports, and High Net Worth Individuals
- While many countries offer Residence by Investment (RBI) and Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programs, the practice often comes under scrutiny.
- Of the two, CBI is the most controversial, opening fertile ground for money laundering, corruption, security threats, and tax avoidance. For this reason, many European countries have shut down their CBI programs.
- While RBI represents a significant source of FDI, its economic effects can outweigh its benefits.
- Globally, the number of high net worth CBI and RBI applicants from advanced economies, especially the United States and Great Britain, is increasing. Applicants are often attracted by the prospect of lighter tax burdens, investment opportunities and, in some cases, personal security.
- It is difficult to foresee a time when Canada would reach the point where life here becomes untenable. If it does, a “golden visa,” or even a “golden passport,” will be of little value, because there will be no safe place left.
A New Kind of Gold Card
Amidst the growing global controversy over the US administration’s immigration policy, one aspect of this policy is flying largely under the radar. In September 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14351 – “The Gold Card.” It directs the Secretaries of Commerce, State, and Homeland Security to establish a “Gold Card” program whereby an alien who makes an “unrestricted gift” of $1 million (plus a $15,000 processing fee) to the United States will qualify for an EB-1 or EB-2 immigrant visa under an “expedited process.” Funds accrued by the program will be deposited in a special fund for the promotion of commerce and American industry, maintained by the Treasury Department.
US EB visas, sometimes called “Einstein visas,” are normally granted to persons who have made extraordinary, internationally recognized achievements in business, science, the arts, or athletics. Notable EB-1 visa holders have included John Lennon, Brazilian football player, Pelé, and Chilean writer, Isabel Allende (Melania Trump also entered the United States on an EB visa).
The Gold Card program, which includes an actual gold card emblazoned with a portrait of the president, essentially monetizes the existing EB visa process. Some commentators have observed that this distorts the intent of the EB program: you don’t have to demonstrate achievement anymore, just be able to write a cheque for the requisite amount, whether or not you actually bring anything meaningful to the United States. The wording of the Executive Order, meanwhile, alludes to the “disastrous” immigration and refugee policies of previous administrations, and the intent of the current one to “…prioritiz[e] the admission of aliens who will affirmatively benefit the Nation…”
In many respects, the Gold Card program, which went “live” in early January, is an exercise in branding and political gamesmanship, to say nothing of profit. For many Americans, it seems counterintuitive to the words (dismissed as a “ridiculous myth” by the current administration) of poet Emma Lazarus, engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
Nothing New Under the Sun: Residence by Investment
Broadly speaking, the United States is not doing anything that many countries all over the world, including Canada, have already been doing for a long time through their residence by investment (RBI or “Golden Visa”) programs. This is the process by which a non-citizen may receive permanent resident status in a country in return for a significant investment in that country.
In Canada, various Provincial Nominee Programs allow provinces and territories to work with the federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship (IRCC) to bring in investors and entrepreneurs from abroad. In Nova Scotia, for example, a provincial entrepreneur immigration stream grants permanent resident status to experienced, high net worth business owners and managers willing to make a significant investment in the province by starting or buying into a business. What sets the US Gold Card apart, however, is that it does not require any active participation by the bearer in American business or the US economy, simply a one-time payment.
Citizenship by Investment and its Discontents
Citizenship by Investment (CBI or “Golden Passport”) programs are rarer, and far more controversial. Over the past few years, the number of states offering purely transactional CBI – i.e. the granting of citizenship for cash – has shrunk dramatically, especially in Europe. Since 2022, Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Moldova and Montenegro have shut down their CBI programs at the urging of the EU. And in 2025, Malta, the last EU member state offering CBI, cancelled its program by order of the EU Court of Justice.
EU objections to CBI are both principled and practical. A passport issued by any one EU country gives the bearer the right to live and work in all EU countries and to travel without documentation within the Schengen Area, comprising virtually all of Western Europe and a considerable portion of Eastern Europe. A 2024 briefing to the European Parliament stressed that CBI both “commodifies” EU citizenship and opens “fertile ground” for money laundering, corruption, security threats, and tax avoidance.
This was largely confirmed by al Jazeera’s so-called “Cyprus Papers” investigation in 2020. Based on leaked Cypriot government documents, the investigation alleged that out of 2500 people who paid to become citizens of the Mediterranean nation between 2017 and 2019, at least 60, many of them Russian or Chinese nationals, should have been rejected as “high risk.” A subsequent Board of Inquiry set up by the Cypriot government determined that between 2007-2020, more than 50% of CBI passports had been “granted outside the law.”
Countries that continue to offer CBI options include Egypt, Turkey, São Tomé, Türkiye, Jordan and several Commonwealth countries in the Eastern Caribbean. Both Austria and Malta continue to offer an “express” route to citizenship for foreign nationals who can demonstrate “extraordinary achievements” or “extraordinary national interest.” In Malta, this extends to include investors and entrepreneurs, so in practice may simply be CBI under another name.
Incentives and Disincentives
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was also a significant incentive for scrutiny of both RBI and CBI programs. Czechia, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Portugal stated that they had barred their RBI programs to all Russian and Belarusian nationals. Meanwhile, Eastern Caribbean nations with CBI programs have now established a single agency to regulate those programs under the auspices of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. All of this seems to indicate growing willingness to exercise a level of scrutiny over both RBI and CBI programs.
Impact on citizens is also a factor in the hesitancy around RBI programs. In 2025, Spain suspended its RBI program because sudden influxes of foreign capital were driving up housing prices, putting them out of the reach of locals. At the same time, RBI can make a real difference to GDP. In Greece and Portugal, RBI accounts for up to 15% of foreign direct investment (FDI) and has been credited with the recovery of failing real estate markets. Here in Canada, the business investor program of the 1990s represented over a billion dollars in FDI and the creation of 25,000 jobs in British Columbia alone. But it was also a major factor in the massive Vancouver real estate boom that led to the continuing disparity between housing prices and local incomes.
But Still Going Strong
Why Is This Important?
For anyone lucky enough to possess one, a Canadian passport is among the most-coveted “golden passports” on the planet. Nevertheless, there are certainly scenarios that would drive Canadians to seek either residency or citizenship in another country. For many Canadians, Canada’s tax burden is sufficiently heavy that countries offering a combination of RBI or CBI along with light tax regimes are highly attractive. Another incentive is the increasingly possibility of financial or political disruption associated with US security and economic policy, up to and including the collapse of the Canadian economy. Still another is tied to rising levels of hate-related crime and mischief directed at specific ethno-cultural and religious demographics. Under these circumstances, even a million dollar “gold card” can make sense, even if the motivations driving the existence of the gold card program itself are questionable. The question is, can Canada afford to lose the economic class that is best positioned to take advantage of RBI and CBI?
Anyone contemplating an RBI or CBI program to establish residence abroad needs to weigh outcomes carefully. They all have the potential for both negative and beneficial effects on local economies. And depending on the country, and the rigour of its program, the possibility of corruption – including bribery and extortion – is always present. And while governments tend to welcome investors, locals may not be so sure. Canadian investors may be lumped in with Russian and Chinese investors and viewed as opportunists and mercenaries, or the programs themselves may be viewed as corrupt, only benefitting social and political elites.
Canadian law permits both natural born and naturalized citizens to hold multiple passports. This raises aspects of the question of “duty of care,” discussed in previous CIBs. If Canadians choose to become citizens or permanent residents of other countries, does Canada have a duty of care for them should security conditions in those countries deteriorate? Canada faced a related dilemma in 2006 when it evacuated close to 15,000 Lebanese-Canadians (later dubbed “Canadians of Convenience”) from Lebanon during a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. While post-evacuation polls showed that a majority of Canadians believed that the government does indeed have a duty of care, a majority also believed that Canadians abroad have an equal responsibility to pay for their evacuation, and to take responsibility for their own safety and security. Twenty years later, in a less secure world, Canadians may be highly sceptical about their responsibility to evacuate tax refugees from their havens.
Finally, from a purely analytical perspective, there all kinds of scenarios in which the future of both the world, and Canada, can be gamed out. Barring a cataclysmic global event, or a major shift in the fundamental concept of Canadian democracy, it is difficult (though not impossible) to foresee a time when Canada would reach the point where life here becomes untenable. If it does, a “golden visa,” or even a “golden passport,” will be of little value, because there will be few safe places left.