IN THIS GUIDE · Corporate-sponsored Gold Card holders in Hampstead whose employment is ending while the employer talks about moving its contribution to someone else.
Start with the GOLD CARD eligibility and application overview
What the corporate contribution actually paid for
Your employer paid a US$15,000 processing fee for you and, after successful vetting, a US$2 million gift when instructed. That gift was evidence supporting the specified benefit and your eligibility; it was never equity, never EB-5 capital, and it carried no promised dividend or return. Only the US$15,000 is described as nonrefundable, so treat other amounts as a question for counsel, not an assumption.
Reuse for another employee is not a handover of your status
Official instructions let a corporate sponsor apply a prior US$2 million gift toward sponsoring a different employee, subject to new vetting and the transfer requirements in force at the time. Executive Order 14351 describes a process involving the prior holder's abandonment of status. No employer can unilaterally reassign lawful permanent residence as if it were an asset on its balance sheet.
Maintenance and transfer charges sit with the company
Corporate participation carries a 1% annual maintenance charge, and 5% where the transfer mechanism is used. These are not part of the ordinary initial fee, and they are the sponsor's obligations under its own agreements. Ask, in writing, who pays them and what happens if your employment ends before any transfer is attempted. Your employment contract and the program's terms are separate documents.
Status, work and what is still required
Gold Card applicants still need lawful permanent residence eligibility, admissibility and an available visa under an EB-1 or EB-2 determination; approval, timing and any later citizenship are never guaranteed. A pending case or a paid fee is not work authorization, while admitted permanent residents are generally authorized to work. Losing a sponsored job raises questions counsel should answer against the current process.
Ask which corporate record authorised the sponsorship
A corporate sponsorship of this size normally leaves a trail inside the company long before it reaches any government portal. A board or committee resolution authorises the expenditure, a signed sponsorship agreement sets out what the company undertakes and for whom, and a payment instruction with its bank confirmation records what actually moved and when. Those three documents answer questions an HR conversation cannot: whether the company committed to a named individual or to a headcount slot, whether any obligation was owed to the employee at all, and what the company reserved the right to do later. Ask for them by name. Where the company says a resolution exists but will not produce it, note the date of that refusal and keep the note with your file.
The separation agreement is where the real terms surface
Terms discussed vaguely during employment tend to appear in writing only at the end of it. A separation or severance agreement commonly carries a release of claims, a repayment clause, a confidentiality provision, and sometimes a consent addressed to the sponsorship itself. Read those four together rather than signing the immigration-flavoured page on its own, because a broadly drafted release may extinguish claims about the sponsorship alongside claims about wages. Note also what the agreement does not say: a document silent on a sponsored application leaves that question open rather than resolving it in anyone's favour. Nothing in a private agreement between an employer and an employee determines immigration status, and counsel should read the whole document before any part of it is signed.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.