Profits From The Crown Estate Boost The Monarchy By £45 Million

Rising Crown Estate income will provide the monarchy with an extra £45 million in funding.

Jumping to more than £130m, the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant will increase by 53 per cent for 2025/26 compared to the previous year, as Crown Estate profits have risen to £1.1 billion.

The Sovereign Grant supports the official duties of the royal family, with the boost coming with the news that royal engagements’ costs went up by £300,000 despite a cutback in commitments amid the illness of the King and the Princess of Wales.

Officials said this increase will be used to help fund the final stages of the 10-year, £369m renovation of Buckingham Palace.

Legislation in 2026/27 will review the boost to keep funding of the royal family at a ‘more appropriate’ level, a Palace spokesman added.

A National Audit Office report on Tuesday revealed that the Palace renovation – expected to be completed on time and within budget – has been well managed but structural damage and the discovery of asbestos, which led to increased costs, ‘could have been foreseen’.

The General Election caused a one-month delay in the release of Buckingham Palace’s annual accounts, which this year covered the first full fiscal year of the King’s reign. The accounts were finally released on Wednesday.

The rundown of royal finances – from April 1 2023 to March 31 2024 – covers the months following the King and the Princess of Wales’s double cancer diagnosis, with both away from public-facing duties from January onwards.

But the accounts also span a time of celebration, with coronation and festivities celebrating the crowning of the King and Queen in May last year.

Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse, described the coronation as a ‘glorious moment in our national story’ but added: ‘If that was the high point in a royal calendar that would contain many subsequent moments of significance on the public stage, then there were also moments of personal challenge for the family at home, which have affected this year’s report in a rather different way.

‘In the early part of 2024 came the sad news that both His Majesty the King and the Princess of Wales would be withdrawing from public-facing duties temporarily, to prioritise their treatment and recovery from cancer.

‘This inevitably impacted on the number and nature of engagements that had been planned – though may I say how encouraging it is to see the King back performing so many public duties and, more recently, the princess similarly well enough to join the King’s Birthday Parade and the men’s Wimbledon final.’

The Sovereign Grant report revealed the royal household will take delivery of two new helicopters in 2024-25 to replace the existing 15-year-old ones.

All money raised by the Crown Estates, right or otherwise. This takes the shape of a government grant that covers expenses related to staffing, travel, state visits, royal residences, public appearances, and official entertainment.

The King does, however, receive funding from investments, rentals, and land ownership.

The State, not the King personally, is the rightful owner of the Crown Estates. Our assets are hereditary possession of the Sovereign held in right of the Crown. This means they belong to the Sovereign for the duration of their reign, but cannot be sold by them, nor do revenues from the assets belong to them.

Doesn’t it make you feel warm inside as you battle to make ends meet?

We are now like a modern-day version of Game of Thrones where we have to accept royalty and accept that they’re better and more worthy than the rest of us.