Why the Figures Get Confused
Almost every headline about royal wealth merges four things that are legally and financially distinct. One is a government grant. One is a public property corporation whose profits go to the Treasury. Two are landed estates, each attached to a different person. Here is what each actually pays, and to whom.
1. The Sovereign Grant – £132.1 million
This is the taxpayer-funded grant covering the monarch’s official duties: staff, travel, and the upkeep of the occupied royal palaces. It was set at £132.1 million for 2025-26.
It is calculated as a percentage of Crown Estate profits, and that percentage was cut from 25 to 12 per cent following the 2023 Royal Trustees’ review, at the King’s own request, so that more of the Crown Estate’s windfall went to the public purse. Institute for Government The grant cannot be spent on private costs.
2. The Crown Estate – £1.1 billion profit, none of it the King’s
This is the one most often misreported as royal wealth. The Crown Estate is a statutory corporation holding land, property and the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, valued at around £15.5 billion (Institute for Government).
It returned a record net profit of roughly £1.1 billion in 2024 (Institute for Government), driven largely by leasing seabed for offshore wind farms. That money goes to the Treasury. The monarch neither owns it nor receives it – the only connection is that the Sovereign Grant is calculated as a percentage of it.
3. The Duchy of Lancaster – £24.4 million to the King
This is the monarch’s private income. The Duchy of Lancaster is a portfolio of land and assets held in trust for the reigning sovereign, and its net surplus is paid to the Privy Purse.
For the year ended 31 March 2025 the adjusted net surplus was £24.4 million, down from £27.4 million the year before, while the estate’s net asset value rose about 5 per cent to £678.7 million. Duchy of Lancaster annual report
4. The Duchy of Cornwall – £22.9 million to the Prince of Wales
Created by Edward III in 1337 to fund the heir to the throne, the Duchy of Cornwall runs to roughly 130,000 acres across more than twenty counties. Its distributable surplus for the year ended 31 March 2025 was £22.9 million, down from £23.6 million. Duchy of Cornwall
That figure funds the official, charitable and private costs of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children. Like the Duchy of Lancaster, its capital is held for the office rather than the individual and cannot be sold for personal benefit.
5. What Is Not Published At All
Personal property is the gap. Sandringham and Balmoral are privately owned rather than held with the Crown, and their value is not disclosed. Nor are the sovereign’s personal investments, art held privately as opposed to in the Royal Collection, or jewellery owned outright rather than worn in an official capacity.
This is why published estimates of royal wealth diverge so wildly. The parts that are documented – grant, duchy surpluses, Crown Estate profit – are documented precisely. The private parts are not documented at all, and any total combining the two is part accounting and part guesswork.
The Arithmetic
The arithmetic. Adding the published figures gives £132.1 million of official funding (Institute for Government), £24.4 million of private income to the King (Duchy of Lancaster) and £22.9 million to the Prince of Wales. The £1.1 billion of Crown Estate profit should not be added at all, because it goes to the Treasury. These are broad assumptions rather than accounting: the duchy surpluses are pre-tax and pre-expenses, and household costs are not itemised in either report, so the amount actually retained by either man cannot be derived from public figures.