Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Charles will inherit the throne, as well as his mother’s large fortune, which he will receive without paying inheritance tax, a privilege reserved for royal succession.
What does the queen have? Although British monarchs are not required to disclose their personal finances, information published by the Sunday Times reports that the personal wealth of Elizabeth II in 2022 was £370 million, up £5 million from the previous year.
As for real estate, the state owns Buckingham Palace, the royal residence in London, and Windsor Castle, located about thirty kilometers west of the capital … But Balmoral Palace, the summer resort of the royal family, and Sandringham Palace, where the Royal family traditionally celebrates the end of the year, the holidays that belonged to the queen will be transferred to Charles.
The Queen also owns a large portfolio of stocks and a collection of royal stamps worth around £100 million, according to The Times Rich List 2021.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, the late queen’s fortune will be added to Charles’s personal fortune, which is estimated at around $100 million (£87 million).
The famous Crown Jewels, worth around £3 billion, are symbolically owned by the Queen and therefore automatically pass to her successor.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip left a more modest legacy of £30m upon his death in April 2021. He especially owned a collection of paintings and three thousand works of art, most of which were bequeathed to friends and family.
Duchy of Lancaster. With accession to the British throne, King Charles III inherits the duchy of Lancaster, which has been held by the royal family since the Middle Ages, which generated £24m of private income for the British in the tax year ending last March. monarch.
“Lancaster money belongs to the monarch, king or queen by virtue of his position,” says David McClure, author of a book on royal finances.
On the other hand, Charles loses the dukedom of Cornwall, which passes to the king’s eldest son and brings in about £21 million a year.
McClure explains that this dukedom “belongs directly to (Prince) William”.
Charles also receives an annual grant called the “Sovereign Grant” from the State Treasury, fixed at 15% of the income from the Crown’s inheritance, and includes mainly real estate, as well as a large wind farm, the proceeds of which were poured into the state treasury after the passage of the law of 1760 G.
This amounted to £86.3m for the period 2021-22, including a large amount of money set aside for a ten-year renovation of Buckingham Palace (£34.5m for 2021-22).
The Sovereign Grant allows you to finance expenses related to official activities on behalf of the King or members of his family, in particular, staff salaries, maintenance and cleaning of palaces, official travel, and receptions.
Royal succession – Most of the Queen’s fortune is transferred to Charles without inheritance tax thanks to an exemption dated 1993 to prevent the royal inheritance from being squandered in the event of the death of more than one king in a short time. time, after the transfer the tax was 40% for each succession.
The Treasury further explains that “private assets such as Sandringham and Balmoral are used for both official and private purposes”, adding that the monarchy must also have “some financial independence from the existing government”.
But this advantage is limited to transitions between the British monarch and his successor.
David McClure argues that “it is possible that the queen left a will and that small sums” would go to members of the family, “but not much of the wealth” that would have gone to Charles.