{"id":229150,"date":"2025-07-01T11:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229150\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T11:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:20:15","slug":"how-much-does-king-charles-and-his-family-cost-the-british-taxpayer-firstpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229150\/","title":{"rendered":"How much does King Charles and his family cost the British taxpayer? \u2013 Firstpost"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a386.3 million \u2014 Rs 1,015 crore.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how much the British Royal family cost the taxpayer in 2024, according to the newly released accounts, which also revealed that the annual income of the royal household is set to rise to \u00a3132.1 million (Rs 1,555 crore) a year for the next two years.<\/p>\n

What do the accounts reveal? How much is King Charles\u2019 income? How much does the British taxpayer pay? Let\u2019s take a closer look at the princely amounts.<\/p>\n

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS ADThe Sovereign Grant, explained<\/p>\n

The money paid by the British taxpayer towards the monarchy is known as the Sovereign Grant and this pays for the upkeep of royal palaces and the royals\u2019 official duties. However, it does exclude security, which is a high cost given the royals\u2019 numerous public engagements and events.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the British Royal Family was funded through a fixed annual payment known as the Civil List. This was replaced by the Sovereign Grant in 2012.<\/p>\n

But how is it decided how much the British taxpayer would shell out for the Sovereign Grant? The profits of the Crown Estate \u2014 a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole \u2014 go to the Treasury. And the level of profit is then used as a benchmark to calculate the funding given to the royals.<\/p>\n

What is interesting to note is that as per the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, if the Crown Estate\u2019s profits fall, the monarch still receives the same amount as the previous year, with the government making up the difference.<\/p>\n

And in 2023 it was decided that the Sovereign Grant will be worth 12 per cent of the Crown Estate\u2019s profits from next year.<\/p>\n

Besides the Sovereign Crown and the Crown Estate,
\nKing Charles<\/a>
\nalso receives money from the Duchy of Lancaster, which is passed down from monarch to monarch. It covers more than 18,000 hectares of land in Lancashire and Yorkshire as well as property in London. These properties are estimated to be worth \u00a3654 million, generating \u00a320 million a year in profits.<\/p>\n

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD\"\"\/Britain\u2019s King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace as part of the Trooping the Colour parade to honour Britain\u2019s King Charles on his official birthday in London, Britain. The Sovereign Grant, pays for the upkeep of royal palaces and the royals\u2019 official duties and is funded by British taxpayer money. File image\/Reuters<\/b>Big royal expenses borne by Sovereign Grant<\/p>\n

The newly-released accounts show that royal travel was one of the most significant expenses from the Sovereign Grant \u2014 a whopping \u00a34.7 million (Rs 55.36 crore) was spent on travel a rise of \u00a3500,000 (Rs 5.88 crore) from \u00a34.2 million (Rs 49.47 crore) the previous year.<\/p>\n

This amount was largely due to the King and Queen\u2019s charter flight to Samoa and a scheduled flight back to London, which totalled \u00a3400,500 (Rs 4.7 crore). The trip was part of a nine-day tour to Australia and the Pacific island, in which the King also attended his first Commonwealth heads of government meeting.<\/p>\n

Other travel costs included a charter flight to and from Belfast and helicopters around Northern Ireland in March, which cost \u00a380,100 (Rs 94 lakh).<\/p>\n

Another big expense draining the Sovereign Grant is the upkeep and maintenance of royal palaces, including Buckingham Palace. The accounts show that \u00a341.2 million (Rs 485 crore) was spent on property maintenance, compared with \u00a347 million (Rs 553 crore) the previous year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been reported that while renovations continue at Buckingham Palace state visits, such as that of French President Emmanuel Macron in July and US President Donald Trump will move to Windsor Castle.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the added cost of wages for those working for the royals. The accounts show that \u00a329.9 million (Rs 352 crore) was spent on payroll, up \u00a32 million from \u00a327.9 million. In fact, accounts reveal that wages for staff has gone up considerably since 2022.<\/p>\n

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n

The Sovereign Grant has also been used to initiate certain green initiatives at Buckingham Palace. One of these programmes is the conversion of the first of two official Bentleys to run on bio-fuel.<\/p>\n

In one-cost cutting move, Buckingham Palace has announced that the royal train would be taken out of service by 2027, after nearly \u00a378,000 was spent on two trips in the past year. The royal train \u2013 which had been used extensively for events during the late Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s 70-year-reign \u2013 requires regular, specialised maintenance work. Decommissioning the train is estimated to save the royal household about \u00a31 million a year.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Protesters hold placards during an anti-monarchy rally organised by campaign group \u201cRepublic\u201d at Trafalgar Square in London. File image\/Reuters<\/b>Calls to abolish Sovereign Grant grow louder<\/p>\n

The taxpayers\u2019 funding of the British royal family has, however, long fuelled criticism, with anti-monarchists calling for the abolition of the Sovereign Grant. CEO of anti-monarchy group Republic, Graham Smith, said the funding was \u201cmad\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grant system is mad. Funding goes up not because of any need for extra money, but because the grant is linked to government profits from land managed by the Crown Estate. The palace has recycled the excuse of needing the money for [the] refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, an excuse used to double the grant 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is obscene to see the billionaire royals rake in another \u00a345 million in funding when disabled people are suffering cuts to their support, when schools and hospitals are struggling, and when household bills continue to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others further argue that official figures vastly underestimate the true burden on the taxpayer. Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat member of parliament and the author of And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don\u2019t Want You To Know, was quoted as telling Al Jazeera that British monarchy is bad value both on its own terms and in comparison to other constitutional monarchies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs, even according to the palace\u2019s own figures, twice as much as any other monarchy in Europe,\u201d Baker told Al Jazeera. \u201cAnd actually that is a grotesque underestimate because there are a number of benefits to the royal family which aren\u2019t available to other monarchies in Europe, for example, the exemption from death duties.\u201d<\/p>\n

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD<\/p>\n

With inputs from agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a386.3 million \u2014 Rs 1,015 crore. That\u2019s how much the British Royal family cost the taxpayer in 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[90212,22359,90210,7709,13080,2633,90211,1760,518,90213,5105,7710,519,448,90209,7711],"class_list":{"0":"post-229150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-britain-royal-family","9":"tag-british-monarchy","10":"tag-british-monarchy-accounts","11":"tag-british-royal-family","12":"tag-british-royals","13":"tag-buckingham-palace","14":"tag-cost-of-royalty","15":"tag-king-charles","16":"tag-king-charles-iii","17":"tag-king-charles-iii-net-worth-2024","18":"tag-royal","19":"tag-royal-families","20":"tag-royal-family","21":"tag-royals","22":"tag-sovereign-grant","23":"tag-uk-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114777714408138438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}