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WEST NIPISSING · GOLD CARD FIELD GUIDE

What should a corporate Gold Card budget for West Nipissing employees keep distinct?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Keep current processing, principal, joining-family, maintenance, transfer, company-advice, and relocation costs in separate lines.

Use official figures current on the action date

Four kinds of money are involved and none of them should share a line. The first is the applicant's contribution to the U.S. government under the published framework: it moves from the applicant to the government, it is nonrefundable, it purchases no equity, and it earns no return, so it must never be described to an employee as an investment.

It is not EB-5 capital, because EB-5 money is placed at risk in a commercial enterprise, can be lost, and is expected to create jobs, while this payment does none of those things and buys no interest in anything. The second is the separate government processing fee published for the route. The third is the ordinary cost of the underlying EB-1 or EB-2 immigrant process: filing fees taken from the USCIS fee schedule, Form G-1055, current on the day of filing, plus medical examinations, civil-document charges and certified translations.

The fourth is everything the company spends around the move, including counsel, tax and payroll advice, relocation and internal administration. Because published amounts and terms have changed, take the figures from the official program page and FAQ on the day money is committed rather than from an earlier approval memo. Confirm current charges before authorizing any payment.

Money is not eligibility, either: the underlying EB-1 or EB-2 process still turns on that person's own classification, their individual admissibility, and a visa number being available for their category and country of chargeability, and the Gold Card route is not a visa category in its own right.