NB: This may not be a word-for-word transcript.
How Rich Is the Royal Family?
Royal weddings like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s here in Windsor are expensive affairs. The last royal wedding – for Prince William and Kate Middleton – cost an estimated $34 million dollars. And that’s low compared to the price tag for Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding – which is predicted to have totaled a hefty $150 million in today’s dollars.
You』ve got to be pretty wealthy to foot bills this big – so just how rich is the royal family?
The personal finances of Britain’s royal family are kept very private, but let’s try to break it down. What we do know is that Queen Elizabeth II is the wealthiest member of the royal family. Forbes estimates the Queen’s personal net worth is around $530 million. That’s a lot – but for context, not enough to put her on the list of the world’s richest people. So where does the Queen’s money come from?
It’s a little complicated, but it can all be traced back to three main sources of money: her personal wealth and income, the Sovereign Grant and the Privy Purse.
Okay, let’s start with personal wealth and income. This includes assets from the Queen’s investment portfolio and private estates. The Queen’s personal investment portfolio includes things like her private jewelry and art. Then there’s her property – like the Balmoral Estate in Scotland and the Sandringham Estate in the English countryside. The Queen inherited both from her father and their combined value is estimated to be around $175 million. When it comes to her personal income, the Queen also has a lucrative hobby: horse racing. It’s reported she’s raked in $9 million over the past three decades from the sport.
Okay, now let’s look at the second source of the Queen’s money: the Sovereign Grant. This is a lump sum the Queen receives from the government to pay for official duties - things like receptions, travel and maintenance of the royal palaces. The Sovereign Grant for 2017 and 2018 is around $100 million. The Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, receives an additional annual allowance from parliament of nearly $500,000 to carry out his public duties.
So where does the money from the Sovereign Grant come from? The short answer is U.K. taxpayers. In 2016 and 2017, the Queen collected around 90 cents per person in the country. That’s the cost of one single first-class stamp.
Okay, let’s go back to the Queen’s third source of income: the Privy Purse. This is a fancy way of referring to the money generated by a very large plot of land, property and assets called the Duchy of Lancaster. The Duchy’s main purpose is to provide income for the Duke of Lancaster, that’s a title that has represented the reigning sovereign since 1399. And yes, the Queen is sometimes referred to as the 「Duke」 of Lancaster. It’s estimated the value of the Duchy of Lancaster is around $700 million. The Queen receives an annual income of around $25 million from that. The Queen’s son, Charles Prince of Wales, receives a similar income from the Duchy of Cornwall. That’s because he’s heir to the crown. His estimated net worth is around $400 million.
In total, the Queen’s immediate family is valued at more than $1 billion. Wealth estimates for the younger generation of royals are around $30 million for Prince William, $7 million for the Duchess of Cambridge and $25 million for Prince Harry.
This all adds up to a lot of money. But sometimes people think the royal family is worth even more. Well, it turns out a lot of the most valuable assets aren’t actually owned by the royal family. They’re a part of two separate funds. One is an organization called the Crown Estate – valued at a whopping $17 billion. It’s a real estate business that includes major chunks of property around the United Kingdom. The Crown Estate is managed by an independent board of directors and its profits go to the U.K. Treasury.
The second fund is the Royal Collection Trust. This includes a lot of the things you would typically associate with Britain’s royal family. We’re talking palaces, famous art collections and – of course – the crown jewels. The total value of the Royal Collection is estimated to be around $15 billion. But since it’s part of a trust that’s passed down from generation to generation – the Queen doesn’t personally own these valuable assets.
There’s no question the royal family is rich. But simply measuring up their assets might not actually give us a full picture of their wealth. It’s estimated the monarchy’s brand brings in more than $1 billion to the U.K. economy every year. Now, that’s a number fit for a Queen.