That the royal family of the United Kingdom owns one of the largest fortunes in the country is an indisputable fact. The sources through which the Windsors generate millions of pounds of income annually remain largely opaque. They are complex financial structures, also covered by favorable tax treatments agreed between the British State and Buckingham Palace. An exhaustive investigation by Channel 4 and the newspaper Sunday Times has finally managed to reveal the origin of the annual fortune that both Charles III and his son and heir William earn through the real estate properties and exploitation rights of their duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.
Public hospitals, schools, prisons, military installations, use of ports and river banks for mooring and unloading tasks or land for the transmission of electricity or fuel. Last year, the companies of the British monarchy generated profits of 60 million euros that Charles III or the Prince of Wales can use as they wish, in a situation of fiscal privilege that exempts them from taxes such as capital gains or corporation taxes. , in addition to being completely shielded against hypothetical expropriations for public works.
Lands conquered in 10 centuries
Many of the tourists who walk through the most visited places in London, such as the luxurious Regent Street, are unaware that much of the land they walk on belongs to the British royal family or some other aristocratic family that continues to make huge profits from their real estate holdings.
The crown of the United Kingdom handed over much of its possessions to the Government almost three centuries ago. The British Treasury manages the call Crown Estate (Crown Real Estate Property), which represents thousands of hectares of urban or rural land throughout the country, and delivers each year a percentage of the income to the royal house to cover the official expenses of State events, receptions, visits, public events and staff maintenance. The amount generated by 2025 will amount to around 157 million euros. The annual budget of the Spanish royal house is almost 8.5 million.
The British Parliament allowed the royal family to retain ownership and management of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. The first covers the monarch’s private expenses – those that Isabel II had in his day, and those that Charles III has today; the second, those of the heir to the crown, the Prince of Wales. When that decision was made, the income generated by that real estate asset was not excessive. For comparison: in 1960, each of the duchies could earn around six million euros. Today the figure is close to 30 million.
Between them they account for about 728 square kilometers, spread across England and Wales. They are lands conquered and retained by the different monarchs since the Norman conquest of the island in 1066.
The journalistic investigation, carried out over five months, has collected public information, has compared business addresses and commercial registry data, and has requested information from dozens of tenants or lessees. The resulting information has been filtered by a computer program that ended up detailing the 5,410 real estate assets of the two duchies.
The data, unsuccessfully claimed from Buckingham Palace for decades, presents a huge real estate fortune. According to the list of millionaires in the United Kingdom who Sunday Times elaborated every year, the wealth of Carlos III is valued at more than 720 million euros.
A hospital, a prison and at least four schools
No institution escapes the financial tentacles of the crown, according to the investigation. The Windsors generate income from the rental or use of real estate properties, which they collect from the central government, its different ministries, local authorities, non-governmental organizations or private companies. Tolls for crossing bridges, for sailing boats, for transporting electricity or gas, or for installing wind power plants.
Dartmoor prison, in the national park of the same name, pays the crown about €1.8 million annually in rent to hold 640 low-risk prisoners. The London hospital of Guy’s and St Thomas gives the Windsors almost a million euros every year for the use of the land where they park and where the ambulances operate.
The county of Devon pays the Duchy of Cornwall almost €380,000 each year to rent the land where Princetown Community Primary School is located. Other schools, such as Farrington Gurney in the town of Bath (71,000 euros) or Welton Primary School (4,500 euros) also go through cash each year.
The British Ministry of Defense assumes million-dollar income for the use of the facilities of the Royal Britannia Navy School, in Dartmouth, where both Charles III and William of England were cadets (one million euros annually). A few miles away, on the same coast, the Government pays 12,000 euros annually for the right of easement involved in refueling the fleet of nuclear submarines in Plymouth.
Both Charles III and heir William of England voluntarily pay income tax at the maximum rate of 45%. They are not very prodigal when it comes to providing data. The latest information from the monarch is from 2022. He then paid seven million euros. Barely 25% of the income generated that year by the Duchy of Lancaster, after applying legal deductions and exemptions.
