With US President Donald Trump announcing on Wednesday, what promises to be an easier to get, with shorter waiting time and perhaps less strings attached, ‘Golden Visa’, will there be an outflow of Indian “Richie Riches” to the “land of the free and the brave”?
Last year according to estimates by Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024, over 4,300 dollar millionaires migrated out of India to greener pastures or nations whose passports allowed them to roam the world better. The figure was slightly less than 5,100 who are believed to have deserted India in 2023. Nearly 25,000 millionaires moved out over the last five years according to wealth and investment consultants. Most of them retained business interests and homes in this country but shifted out to countries ranging from UAE, tax-free destinations in the Caribbeans, Singapore, Europe, Canada, and the US.
Opinions differed on whether there would be a rush to US consulates in India for a Golden Visa. Said Amb. Pinak R Chakravarty, former Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs, “Most of those businessmen who wished to relocate abroad have done so. A costlier ‘Golden Visa’ may not be that big a draw. After all the US always had an EB 5 Visa where one could get a US permanent residency by investing just $1 million.”
Permanent residency in the US means, that the visa holder will be taxed in the US regardless of where his investments are and this is seen as a complicated issue by many investors, agreed Purusharth Mishra, 61, a wealth advisor, who manages portfolios for rich Indians and advises them on tax liabilities post-migration. “Its tax-wise cheaper to locate to UAE or to the Caribbeans and as far as strength of a passport – counties like Singapore, Denmark, Germany, Spain or Ireland have stronger passports than the USA … so we have to see how the ‘Golden Visa’ really plays out,” said Mishra.
President Trump’s ‘Golden Visa’ programme whose details are still fuzzy, comes after the US scraps the EB 5 visa which Trump thinks brings in too little money and which other critics said does not really encourage investment and may be linked to “dirty money” or money with questionable antecedents. “You have a green card, this is a gold card,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office today adding it would be a route to US citizenship.
It’s unclear whether this would be fast-tracked compared to other green card visa holders who have to wait for 5 years before getting citizenship. However, there are worries that this would encourage a horde of migrants whose income may be less than clean and would not help the US reduce its public debt, as claimed by President Trump. “President Trump’s aim of reducing his national debt by selling golden visas may not get him anywhere near his target. America’s public debt is too huge,” pointed out Prof Biswajit Dhar, distinguished professor in economics and acting President of the Council For Social Development.
The US has a national debt of $ 35.46 trillion as of October 2024. Even if the US were to give 5 million millionaires ‘Golden Visas’ over the next five years, it would earn just $25 billion, a minuscule fraction of its total debt. Currently, the US doles out 10,000 EB 5 visas in a year. “We do not really know what checks will be made on those migrating on the ‘Golden Visa’ as President Trump has spoken of Russian oligarchs being interested in the visa,” pointed out Prof Dhar.
Golden Visa programmes elsewhere have often been mired in controversy as these have been found to encourage money laundering and attracting corrupt businessmen as migrants. Fewer background checks on where the money comes from would encourage a category of Indian and other global businessmen to look at the US option. But Mishra also pointed out that at $5 million, the visa “was one of the most expensive in the world”. “In countries like Granada, Malta, Spain or Caribbean nations, one can a Golden visa for $200,000-$300,000.”
