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Topics: Money, Royal Family, Explained, UK News, King Charles III, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Queen Camilla
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Money, Royal Family, Explained, UK News, King Charles III, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Queen Camilla
The highest and lowest-paid members of the British Royal Family have been revealed.
Unlike your regular 9-to-5er, members of the royal family don't actually receive a traditional salary.
Instead, they receive funding from taxpayers and private estates, which help to cover their expenses as working royals.
The Sovereign Grant is the UK government's annual funding for the Monarch's official duties, covering staff, palace maintenance, and royal engagements, funded by a percentage of profits from the Crown Estate, which the King surrenders to the government in exchange.
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And, as we say, it's funded by taxpayers each year.
NBC News has reported that it would increase by approximately $60 million in the 2026-2027 year.
Now, the Crown finances can be pretty complex, and they are not entirely public, but it is known that the royals are worth billions of pounds.
So, without further ado, let's get into a handful of the highest-paid royal family members as well as the ones who don't benefit from funding at all.
Kicking off the rundown is the ruling monarch, King Charles III, who is the top earner, by a long way, per The Sunday Times' 2025 Rich List.
The 77-year-old pulls in around £24.4m a year from the Duchy of Lancaster, according to the Duchy’s official website, with his personal net worth sitting at roughly £640m.
When he inherited the Duchy of Cornwall following his father's accession to the throne in 2022, 43-year-old Prince William also inherited its revenue stream.
In 2025, the estate generated a surplus of about £22.9m, per the Duchy’s annual Integrated Impact Report.
One of the longest-serving working royals is Prince Edward, the elder son of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark.
Over his lifetime, the 90-year-old has received an estimated £18m in official payments, per the Guardian.
Princess Anne's lifetime official payments are estimated at £16.6m over 51 years, which averages out at roughly £330k a year to cover work costs.
Anne, 75, is the younger sister of Charles.
Prince Edward, 61, is Charles and Anne’s younger brother.
Since 1982, he has received around £6.5m in official funding, per the Guardian.
Prince Harry, 41, is no longer on the royal payroll.
He and his wife, Meghan Markle, 44, stopped receiving Sovereign Grant funding in 2020 after stepping down as working senior royals and now rely on private income and commercial deals.
"While the contribution from The Sovereign Grant covers just five per cent of costs for The Duke and Duchess and is specifically used for their official office expense, Their Royal Highnesses prefer to release this financial tie," a statement on their website explained in 2020, outlining their transition to 'members of the Royal Family with financial independence' made that year.
Payments for 65-year-old Andrew, the disgraced former Duke of York, who has now been stripped of his royal titles, stopped in 2019 after he stepped back from royal duties following his
BBC Newsnight interview about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
His total official funding before that is estimated at £12.9m.
Tyla has reached out to both Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace for comment.