​The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every household – even the British royal family. In June 2021, the Crown Estate announced its financial figures for the year 2020/21 and some areas, such as rents from properties, have seen profits tumble. Overall though the estate has risen in value to a staggering £15.6 billion ($19.1bn), an increase of 8.3% on last year. As the Crown starts auctioning off Britain's seabeds, read on to discover how the royal family makes its money, where it goes, and how much each member receives...

According to the Sunday Times' 2021 Rich List, Queen Elizabeth's net worth is thought to be around £365 million ($508m). However, as the Queen doesn't have a typical job, where is this money coming from?

The royal family's main income source is the Sovereign Grant. Introduced in April 2012 to replace the Civil List, the grant is an annual lump sum given to the Queen each year by the Treasury for her and her family to carry out official duties. It also pays for the upkeep of royal residences such as Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace. In the 2021/22 financial year the family will receive £86.3 million ($108m), which is £1.2 million ($1.5m) less than last year.

The annual value of the Sovereign Grant is based on the Crown Estate. This £14.4 billion ($18bn) independent portfolio includes swathes of land including the iconic Regent Street in Central London (pictured), home to many high-end department stores. The net profit from the Crown Estate – £269.3 million ($375m) in the financial year 2020/21 – goes to the UK government's Treasury, which then decides how much of that money will go to the royal family in the Sovereign Grant that year. Typically around 25% of the profits are returned to the Crown Estate.

The estate finances felt the sting of the pandemic and profits fell 21.9% in the year up to March 2021, a drop of $75.7 million ($95m). The decrease was mainly due to the estate granting rent deferrals and rent-free periods to help businesses stay afloat. Across the year the estate collected only 81% of the rent due and offered £53.7 million ($67m) in financial aid to its tenants. This dip was forecasted by the estate back in September when it announced that it had only taken around two-thirds of the rent due for the three months following March 2020. 

The Crown Estate has some surprising tenants. In 2015 it funded the development of Banbury Gateway Shopping Park in Central England, and the occupants now include a McDonald's restaurant. But not all of the Crown Estate's property investments have proved popular. 

In October last year, the Pandora Papers – a collection of around 12 million leaked documents that expose the financial secrets of the world's wealthiest people – revealed that the Crown Estate bought a £67.7 million ($85m) London property from Ilham Aliyev (pictured), the ruler of Azerbaijan. Aliyev has been accused of corruption and human rights offences since he took office in 2003. A Crown Estate spokesperson said that the company had carried out legal checks before buying the building on Conduit Street and would be investigating the matter further. 

There isn't just money to be made on shore. The royal family owns the UK's coastline and seabeds, and in 2004 then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's government passed an act of Parliament that meant the Crown Estate could collect royalties from the seabeds by leasing them out to the private sector. This February an auction of these seabeds took place, and energy giant BP is one of several companies to have acquired leases for six plots around England and Wales to develop windfarms. It's anticipated that the deal could generate £879 million ($1.1bn) each year for the next decade for the Crown Estate, meaning the Queen and the Treasury could rake in £9 billion ($11.2bn) over the next 10 years. The value of the royals' marine portfolio soared by £2.1 billion ($2.9bn) between 2020 and 2021, according to a Crown Estate financial report – and as of June this year, the Crown's seabed rights have reached £5 billion ($6.1bn). 

Separate to the Crown Estate, the Queen also earns a pretty penny from her own vast collection of property and land, around 18,000 hectares in England and Wales to be precise. Such assets are known as the Duchy of Lancaster and are managed and run on behalf of the Queen, who in turn receives all the net profits, which totalled £22.3 million ($27.8m) in the financial year ending March 2021. It is not subject to tax, but the Queen has voluntarily paid tax since 1993.

However, in 2017 the royal family suffered some embarrassment when the Duchy of Lancaster was named in the Paradise Papers, a forerunner of the 2021 Pandora Papers. The Queen does not personally control the Duchy and so it is very unlikely that she was aware her money was invested in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, but the revelation did raise some eyebrows, even though it was not an illegal scheme.

Beyond the royal households, which are held in trust for future generations, the Queen also has some private investments and assets such as her inherited private 53,000-acre estate at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Visitors can tour the grounds and exhibitions of Balmoral from April to the beginning of August, with entry costing £15 ($18.75) per adult.

And there's the 20,000 acres at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, where the Queen usually spends Christmas. The estate's gardens and the house are open to the public at a cost of £20 ($25) per adult visitor.

In 1993 the royal family decided to open the doors to parts of Buckingham Palace in order to help pay for the restoration of Windsor Castle after a fire. That first year the palace welcomed 380,000 visitors. The Royal Collection Trust was then set up to deal with the process of welcoming visitors to the royal residencies, which is fairly lucrative...

The Trust reported total income of £71.5 million ($89.4m) in 2019/20, with around £49.86 million ($62.4m) of this generated by visitors' entry fees, reflecting 3.285 million admissions to the likes of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. The Trust also saw retail sales from the royal gift shops reach a healthy £19.98 million ($25m). The Trust is self-funded and uses this income to operate. However, the impact of COVID-19 and social distancing meant that the Trust had to close its locations and make drastic cuts such as laying off staff members, which allowed it to save more than £25 million ($31.3m). The Trust has also had to take a bank loan of £22 million ($27.5m) to ensure its future survival. 

According to figures from the Royal Family, income supplementing the Sovereign Grant fell by 53% from 2019/20 to 2020/21, "largely reflecting the impact of Covid-19 on the ability of Royal Collection Trust to open the Royal Palaces for visitors."

For the first time in history, last summer the general public was able to pay to enter the Queen's private London gardens in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. As the pandemic caused uncertainty as to whether the palace itself would be able to open, the decision was taken to open the 39-acre garden for picnics from July to September 2021, and weekend guided tours of the garden were also available. Today's garden design dates back to 1825 when King George IV converted Buckingham House into Buckingham Palace, and visitors were able to see the garden's lake, wildflower meadow, rose garden, and the 156-metre (512-feet) herbaceous border.

Works of art from the Royal Collection – the largest private art collection in the world – and the Crown Jewels are not the Queen’s to own, and therefore are not counted in her net worth. Instead they’re to be held by Her Majesty, and must be passed on to her successor when she ceases to be monarch.

Part of the Royal Collection includes a stamp collection, which according to The Telegraph is worth a whopping £100 million ($125m). The valuable collection belonged to her father King George VI, and includes a Mauritian stamp that is worth £2 million ($2.5m) alone.

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A little less surprising is the Queen's stable at Sandringham, which has around 25 horses training each season and a flock of racing pigeons. The royal stables have been valued at £6.5 million ($8.1m), and generate additional income for the equestrian-loving monarch.

Prince Charles makes most of his money from the Duchy of Cornwall, a collection of lands and holdings of around 131,000 hectares owned by his family. The Duchy generated a total income of £20.4 million ($25.5m) in 2020/21 which, with its share of the Sovereign Grant, comes to £20.8 million ($26m) in income and funding.

Find out more about Prince Charles' life as much more than just the heir to the British throne

A large part of Princes William and Harry's wealth stems from the £21 million ($26.3m) trust their late mother Princess Diana left to the beneficiaries of her will. After inheritance tax the sum dropped to £13 million, which is equal to £23.39 million ($29.3m) today. While they received the full amount when they turned 30, the princes have had access to the trust’s profits, which is thought to be around £330,000 ($413k) per year, since they were 21.

When Meghan Markle joined the royal fold, she had already made her own fortune. Before she met Prince Harry and became the Duchess of Sussex, Markle had built up a wealth of around $5 million (£3.9m), generated by her $50,000-an-episode (£39.9k) role on legal drama Suits, as well as sponsorship deals, and not forgetting the freelance calligraphy that she did between acting jobs. Markle could certainly pay her own way before entering the royal household.

In January 2020, Harry and Meghan announced that they would be stepping back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family to seek financial independence. This meant that they would no longer receive funds from the Sovereign Grant. Harry and Meghan have already started making their own money though. Just eight months later the pair unveiled a deal with Netflix to make series for the streaming platform, which was reportedly worth $100 million (£79.8m), and by the end of 2020 Harry and Meghan had also sealed a deal with Spotify to produce their own podcast, which is apparently worth around $25 million (£19.9m). It's not all gone according to plan, however, with Netflix scrapping Meghan's upcoming animated series Pearl after a drastic fall in subscribers prompted the streaming service to make cutbacks. 

Meghan has created another stream of income in the form of a children’s book, titled The Bench, and the pair have made numerous TV appearances alongside Oprah Winfrey. Harry also has a publishing deal for an autobiography, rumoured to be worth $20 million (£15.9m), which is due out at the end of this year. As if that wasn't enough, in March Harry announced not one, but two new jobs...

Harry was appointed Chief Impact Officer at Silicon Valley start-up BetterUp, which provides coaching, advice and support for both businesses and organisations, and within two days it was announced that Harry was joining a new Commission on Information Disorder founded by the nonprofit organisation the Aspen Institute, which aims to counter the spread of false information in the digital world. The Commission is funded by Craig Newmark, the billionaire owner of the Craigslist listings website.

No salary details have been announced for either of these roles, though it's likely Harry receives a hefty paycheque for his role at BetterUp. In May this year it was reported that BetterUp employees were "not happy about Prince Harry being involved, and all the money he's being paid." Company co-founder Alexi Robichaux has apparently introduced a new business model that will give coaches higher salaries, sparking rumours that the pay structure was unfairly weighted.

 

Other royals also work for money. Princess Beatrice is ninth in line to the throne, and is thought to have a fortune of $4.6 million (£3.7m), amassed from trust funds set up by the Queen Mother, and the payout from her parents' divorce in 1996. But as she is not a full-time royal, Beatrice works. She currently works at US-based technology firm Afiniti, with the title of Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy. However, she is on leave following the birth of daughter Sienna Elizabeth.

Beatrice’s younger sister Eugenie is thought to have a similar-sized inheritance behind her, but has also had a few jobs over the years. The princess worked for online auction house Paddle8 in New York from 2013 until 2015. Eugenie later joined the ranks of Mayfair-based gallery Hauser & Wirth as an associate director in the summer of 2015. Her hard work and determination hasn’t gone unnoticed, as she was promoted to director in 2017, and it is said to be “well deserved". She is also on leave following the birth of son August last year. 

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The royal family’s wealth hasn’t always been so public. In fact, documents unveiled in February show that, in 1973, the Queen opposed new transparency legislation proposed by the British government, which would allow company shareholders’ identities to be revealed at a director’s request. In turn, this could reveal the royal family’s shareholdings and investments – and their tremendous monetary value – and prompt scrutiny from the public.

The royal family believed that in-depth disclosure of their business dealings would be “embarrassing” and so, following pressure from the Queen’s personal lawyer, a clause was added to the bill that allowed heads of state to be exempt. The clause allegedly helped to conceal the Queen’s private fortune until at least 2011, British newspaper The Guardian reported.

Part of the money that the Queen and Prince Charles receive is to be distributed among younger royals in order to support their work and lifestyles. In 2020/21, Prince Charles spent £4.5 million ($5.6m) towards running the households of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – a “substantial sum” of which went towards helping Prince Harry and his family to move to America, according to Prince Charles’ office, although there is a dispute as to when that money was given.

Prince Charles also spent approximately £7.8 million ($9.8m) on official duties and charitable work, which includes supporting the royal work of his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, and his son and daughter-in-law the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The Duchy of Cornwall also spent a further £3.1 million ($3.8m) on "non-official expenditure" last year.

The money used for official duties covers staff and office costs, as well as paying for the royals' clothes, since protocol prevents them from accepting any free items. Renovating royal households can also cost a large sum and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex hit the headlines in June 2019 when £2.4 million ($3m) of taxpayers’ money was used to remodel and refurbish their home in Windsor, Frogmore Cottage (pictured). It was confirmed that the pair had repaid the money in September 2020 after they stepped away from the royal family.

In order to carry out official duties and tours the royal family often travel by air. In fact, between 2015 and 2020 the family racked up 545,161 air miles, at a cost of £6.5 million ($8.2m), according to a report by Stratos Jet Charters. That's enough to “get them to the moon and back, and then complete three loops of the earth’s equator”. The top traveller during this period by far was Prince Charles, who made 25 trips – 88% of which were by private jet – at a cost of more than £2.4 million ($3m). Prince Andrew had the second-highest air miles at 77,668 across nine trips, costing more than £225,000 ($283k), but only a third were private jet trips. Prince Charles' wife Camilla came in third, and Prince Harry, who has now stepped back from the royal family, journeyed 51,362 miles and was the fourth-most travelled royal. His trips cost £442,900 ($555.5k) and 43% were by private jet. His brother and second-in-line to the throne Prince William came in fifth place after generating 48,496 air miles over 10 trips – 70% of which were by private jet – at a cost of £477,054 ($598k). 

The Queen rarely travels by air, generating just 3,752 air miles on two trips in the past five years. While both were by private jet, the cost was a far smaller £83,575 ($105k). Travel costs have been understandably muted in 2020/21 because of COVID-19 restrictions, but the cost of journeys undertaken by Prince Charles and his part of the family by air and rail still added up to £252,000 ($316k), according to the most recent annual finance review.

The royal family needs help to organise their schedules, welcome foreign dignitaries and maintain their homes, as well as to control their finances. But salaries vary a lot. The Keeper of the Privy Purse, who acts as the Queen's treasurer, is Sir Michael Stevens (pictured with the Queen) and was reportedly receiving a salary of £180,000 ($226k) a year in 2012, whereas Windsor Castle has advertised Ticket Sales Assistant positions for the Royal Collection Trust at a salary of £9.50 ($11.92) an hour, the UK minimum wage. 

Prince Charles also likes to give back to the community, having launched The Prince’s Trust in the mid-1970s. The charity says it has delivered benefits to the UK worth £1.4 billion ($1.8bn) by supporting people aged 11 to 30 across the UK.

In 1990, Prince Charles launched a range of organic products called Duchy Originals, starting with an oaten biscuit. The aim was to support small- and medium-sized producers, as well as charities, as all profits go to good causes. The range partnered with major UK supermarket Waitrose in 2009, and so far customers purchasing the goods, which now come under the name of Waitrose Duchy Organic, have helped to raise more than £30 million ($37.6m) in support of projects across Great Britain.

It isn’t just Prince Charles who works closely with charities, as both his sons are heavily involved in raising money for good causes too. Princes William and Harry formed the Royal Foundation in 2009 but, following Harry and Meghan’s departure from the royal family, the brothers now pursue separate charity work. Today The Royal Foundation is spearheaded by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and has granted £1.8 million ($2.3m) to 10 different UK-based charities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The foundation’s most recent project is a centre for early childhood.

While they might earn and spend a lot, with their ever-increasing popularity the royals are said to be responsible for bringing in some big money to the UK economy via tourism. According to Brand Finance, the royals' net contribution to the UK economy was estimated at around £1.766 billion ($2.2bn) in 2017.

Discover more about how much the British royal family pays its staff