IN THIS GUIDE · Completing the visa stage after Gold Card vetting has cleared and gift instructions have arrived
Start with the GOLD CARD eligibility and application overview
What vetting clearance actually settles
Successful vetting tells you the government is ready to receive the qualifying gift; it is not an approval of permanent residence. You must still be eligible as a lawful permanent resident, be admissible to the United States, and be matched with an available visa in your category. Nothing about the payment or the cleared vetting authorises you to work or to reside in the United States yet.
Sending the gift only when instructed
Make the US$1 million gift only after USCIS instructs you, and follow the transfer details in that instruction exactly. The gift is evidence supporting the specified benefit you are seeking, not an investment: it buys no equity, promises no dividend, and carries no return. Separately, the US$15,000 processing fee you already paid is non-refundable, whatever the later outcome of your case.
EB-1 or EB-2, and your visa number
Your file is determined under EB-1 or EB-2, and that classification drives everything that follows. Chargeability — normally the country you were born in, not where you live in Quebec — decides which visa queue applies and when a number becomes available to you. Confirm the category and chargeability early, because a queue that is not current pauses the case regardless of the gift. Ask in writing which category your file sits in and which chargeability the agency has recorded, then keep the reply. A category assumed by an adviser and a category recorded by the agency are different facts, and only one of them governs the queue.
Interview, medical and the day work begins
Once a visa is available you attend an interview, complete the required medical examination with an authorised physician, and submit whatever additional documents the consular officer requests. Approval leads to admission as a lawful permanent resident, and permanent residence generally authorises employment from admission. Until then, a pending case and a completed payment give you no permission to work in the United States.
Every stage has an owner, and most of them are you
Unlike an employment case, this file has no company standing behind it. No petitioner absorbs a mistake, no human resources department chases a missing certificate, and no officer of a business signs anything for you. The applicant makes the declarations, the applicant answers at interview, and the applicant carries the consequence of an inaccurate statement. A consular officer decides admissibility; an authorised physician performs the medical examination; the agency issues instructions. None of those parties works for you, and none is obliged to volunteer what you did not ask. Write down, stage by stage, who must act next and what they need from you before they can.
When a company offers to fund the payment
A prospective employer or a family business sometimes offers to provide the money, raising questions the applicant, not the company, must answer. Establish who is legally making the payment, from which account and on whose instruction, because the transfer has to follow the written instruction exactly. Ask counsel what the arrangement means for the record of where the funds came from. A company cannot hold this status for somebody; permanent residence attaches to a person. Keep the corporate arrangement and the immigration file documented separately.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.