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| - A post on X, viewed more than 375,000 times, claims “The Royal Family receive approximately £320m a year from the taxpayer”. It has also been repeated on Facebook, but it isn’t quite right. The post also suggests that this money could be saved for public use by cutting back on royal expenditure.
As we’ve explained previously, this mixes up the net revenue profits of the Crown Estate with the Sovereign Grant.
Although the King or Queen owns the Crown Estate (a portfolio of property and other holdings, which in 2023/24 had net assets of £15.5 billion) this isn’t their personal property, and they cannot sell any part of it for personal gain.
From 2016/17 until 2019/20 the Crown Estate generally made around £329 million to £345 million in net revenue profit, in the ballpark of the £320 million mentioned in the Facebook post. But in 2022/23 this increased to £442.6 million after “a significant increase in Crown Estate’s profits from offshore wind”. In 2023/24 this more than doubled to £1.1 billion.
The profits of the Crown Estate are public money and all go to the Treasury. Therefore it would be inaccurate to suggest this total amount could be recouped by reducing royal expenditure.
The Treasury then uses this amount to calculate how much should be paid to the King via the Sovereign Grant. The money for this grant comes from public funds—most of which comes from general taxation, but some of it is from non-tax sources (such as the Crown Estate profits).
According to the government website, the grant “meets the central staff costs and running expenses of His Majesty’s official household—including official receptions, investitures and garden parties. It also covers maintenance of the Royal Palaces in England and the cost of travel to carry out royal engagements such as opening buildings and other royal visits.”
This year the size of the Sovereign Grant will be £86.3 million, which is considerably less than the £320 million claimed on social media.
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The changing size of the Sovereign Grant
Between 2017/18 and 2023/24, the size of the Sovereign Grant was 25% of the Crown Estate’s annual profit from two years previously, or what the grant was the year before (whichever was higher). For 2023/24 this totalled £86.3 million.
Prior to 2017 the Sovereign Grant had been worth 15% of the Crown Estate profits generated two years previously.
This percentage has changed again from 2024 onwards. The total Sovereign Grant for the financial year 2024/25 and until the next review by the Royal Trustees in 2027 will be 12% of the Crown Estate revenue account profit for the financial year two years previous. However, it will remain unchanged at £86.3 million in 2024/25 because the Sovereign Grant can’t be less than the previous year’s grant.
The way the Sovereign Grant is calculated is being reduced to 12% of the Crown Estate’s annual profit partly because the profits have risen significantly due to the additional income from offshore wind.
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