IN THIS GUIDE · Kirkland applicants who have mixed the unreleased Platinum waiting list and its promised tax features with the Gold Card terms that exist today.
Start with the GOLD CARD eligibility and application overview
Gold Card taxation is ordinary permanent resident taxation
The official Gold Card terms describe taxation of US permanent residents on worldwide income, including non-US income. Do not import an advertised future Platinum tax benefit into a Gold Card plan. Ask a cross-border tax adviser how ordinary rules, reporting obligations and any applicable relief affect your own Canadian-source income; the program description does not resolve an individual tax return.
Platinum is a separate, unreleased tier
The Platinum tier has not been released, and a waiting list is not an application, an admission, or work authorization. Nothing on such a list gives you a filed case, a visa number, or a right to enter the United States. Treat any promised future benefit as unavailable until official instructions publish it, and make decisions on the Gold Card terms that exist now.
What an individual applicant actually pays
An individual principal pays a nonrefundable US$15,000 DHS processing fee and, after successful vetting, gives US$1 million when instructed. That is the current individual structure, not a five-million-dollar headline you may have seen quoted for something else. Other government, medical and professional costs are additional, and only the US$15,000 is explicitly described as nonrefundable in the official program instructions.
The gift is not an investment, and approval is not guaranteed
The qualifying gift is evidence of the specified benefit and of your eligibility. It is not EB-5 capital, not equity, and it carries no dividend or promised return; there is no Gold Card job-creation requirement either. You still need permanent residence eligibility, admissibility and an available visa under an EB-1 or EB-2 determination, and approval, timing and citizenship are not guaranteed.
Sort the claims before you weigh them
Take everything you have been sent and split it into three columns: claims the official instructions state today, claims about a tier that has not been released, and claims you cannot trace to either. Confusion survives because those three sit in one paragraph and read as a single offer. The third column is the one that costs money, since an untraceable claim tends to arrive with a figure attached and no author willing to stand behind it. Date the page you checked, because published terms can change and a dated capture settles a later disagreement about what was actually available when you decided.
What the payment does not buy
A paid fee is a paid fee and nothing beyond it. Payment confers no status, authorizes neither work nor travel, and commits no one to approving anything, and the applicant's own payment to the U.S. government does not stand in for the eligibility and admissibility that permanent residence continues to require. The damage comes from treating a receipt as a decision: notice is given to an employer, a lease is signed, a school year is arranged. Keep the receipt in the file as proof of what was paid and when, and keep every irreversible household decision behind the grant rather than behind the payment.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.