Royal accounts have revealed that the monarchy was given £86.3 million in 2023/24 from the Sovereign Grant – and the palace has revealed how much this costs each person in the UK
It is the time of year when the Royal Family reveals exactly how much money it costs taxpayers.
And the breakdown of the funding of how much every person in the UK puts towards this has been announced by the palace – and it might come as a surprise. Today, official figures showed that the Royal Family was given £86.3million for the last financial year from the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant.
This number will increase from £86.3 million in 2024/2025 to £132 million in 2025/2026, thanks to soaring profits from the Crown Estates. The Crown Estates belongs to the sovereign, King Charles, but only for the duration of his reign. He cannot sell them and the revenue generated by them does not belong to him.
Profits from the estate are paid directly to the Treasury and a percentage of this cash, currently 12 per cent, is given back to the Royal Family to support their duties. This means the spike in profits means more money for the royals in future years. Officials said the increase will be used to help fund the final stages of the 10-year £369 million renovation of Buckingham Palace, keeping it on time and budget. So how much does this all cost the people of the year?
Well according to palace officials, the cost per person in the UK of the ‘core’ part of the Sovereign Grant for official duties is 77p. This rises to £1.29 when the long-term works to Buckingham Palace are included. Buckingham Palace’s annual accounts – covering the first full financial year of the King’s reign – were published today after being delayed for a month because of the General Election. The accounts also revealed that the royal household will take delivery of two new helicopters in 2024-25 to replace the existing 15-year-old ones.
The AgustaWestland AW139s are considered a “key component” in enabling the King and other members of the Firm to carry out their engagements, allowing access to remote areas of the UK, and they will replace the current Sikorsky helicopters. The King’s state Bentleys are being converted to run on bio-fuel within the next year, with a view to switching to a fleet of official electric cars in the future, while solar panels have been introduced to Windsor Castle for the first time.
Gas lanterns at Buckingham Palace, which were switched off during the recent energy crisis as a cost-saving measure, are being repurposed with specially designed electrical fittings to improve their energy efficiency while also preserving their historic look and glow.
Official travel costs for the monarchy rose marginally by £0.3million from £3.9million to £4.2 million. The most expensive travel was King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to Kenya by charter flight in October, along with the related separate staff planning visit by scheduled flights, which came to a total of £166,557. A three-day state visit to France, with trips to Paris and Bordeaux, by Charles and Camilla by charter flight in September cost £117,942.
The accounts also showed there were more than 2,300 official engagements by members of the Royal Family in the UK and overseas, compared with more than 2,700 last year. The King undertook 464 official engagements despite his cancer diagnosis, with Camilla carrying out 201, of which 103 were joint engagements.
