The British royal family has always attracted the interest of the world public as a whole, be it because of their lavish lifestyles, scandals or the various etiquettes they follow.
One of the remarkable features of the British royal family is their rich lifestyle choices – whether it’s the palace they live in, their clothes, their commutes and the sheer power of their security.
Who Funds the British Royal Family?
There is no doubt that the royal family’s purse strings are maintained by British taxpayers – a system that has been in place since 1760, when George III was on the brink of bankruptcy when the monarchy handed over the Crown Estate to Parliament.
Until 2011, the royal family was funded by the so-called ‘civil list’, which in 1760 itself set the monarchy’s income at £800,000 a year.
Then the civil list was replaced by a royal grant, which gave the monarchy a financial share in the assets of the crown estate for the first time since 1760.
The Civil List provided £7.9m of support in 2011, together with travel costs. By 2025, The Times estimates this will jump to a whopping £132.1 million for members of the royal family.
This is despite a significant reduction in the number of working Royals over the years.
King Charles himself said before taking the throne that he wanted a slimmed-down monarchy. This was not done by will, but by external circumstances. The Queen and Prince Philip died, Harry and Meghan apologized and Andrew was recently fired.
However, this does not mean that the burden on taxpayers would be reduced by any amount. In fact, even though we have fewer working Royals, the bill paid by the taxpayer has only increased. And so is the wealth of the family.
While Buckingham Palace has regularly offered this amount as marginal, comparing it to the cost of a cup of instant coffee for every taxpayer, facts cited by The Times have shown otherwise. The British monarchy is much more expensive than any other European monarchy.
How does the British royal wealth compare to other monarchies?
According to official figures from European countries cited by the paper, here is a list of the relative annual costs of the continent’s monarchies —
• Britain £132.1 million (2025)
• Netherlands £46m (2024)
• Norway £24m (2022)
• Belgium £12.5m (2021)
• Sweden £11.5m (2021)
• Denmark £10.8m (2022)
• Spain £7.4m (2023)
