Simon Wilson
There has been much speculation about King Charles’ net worth and his standing among the richest people in the world.
According to The Sunday Times Rich List 2025, King Charles III has a net worth of £640 million, up by £30 million compared to last year. This ranks him 238th out of 350 of Britain’s richest individuals and families – a jump from 258th last year.
It also means that his fortunes now match the combined net worth of former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty – and are nearly double that of late Queen Elizabeth II, whose personal wealth was £330 million at the time of her death.
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We explore King Charles’ net worth, how much he inherited from his late mother and whether he pays inheritance tax on his vast personal fortune.
King Charles’ net worth explained
In a 2023 investigation by The Guardian, the King’s private wealth was estimated to be around £1.815 billion, which is three times higher than The Sunday Times’ calculation. This valuation included his royal holdings worth £330 million, royal vehicles valued at £6.3 million, art, private jewels estimated at £533 million, the late Queen’s inheritance and investments in stocks and shares worth around £142 million.
However, Robert Watts from The Sunday Times reasons that “these estates come with the job as sovereign and there are rules circumscribing a monarch’s ability to sell or profit from them”.
The largest is the Crown Estate, with a property portfolio of £16 billion, including Regent Street, Ascot racecourse and virtually the entire UK seabed up to 12 miles from the coast.
King Charles currently receives 12% of the Crown Estate’s annual profits as a Sovereign Grant, which essentially funds the royal family’s official duties and running costs and is provided by the HM Treasury. According to royal accounts, he received record profits of £1.1 billion in 2023-24, and is set to receive £132 million this financial year.
His most valuable assets are Sandringham in Norfolk and Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, which are valued at about £250 million and £210 million respectively. According to The Sunday Times, an “entirely legal quirk” makes any assets passed on from “sovereign to sovereign” free of inheritance tax. This was introduced by Sir John Major in 1993 when he was the UK’s prime minister.
Last year, an investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme uncovered every plot of land owned by the King and Prince William through the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall.
It found that the duchies were making millions every year by charging on land holdings which include 37 commercial properties, 2,682 mining-related sites, ten schools, an NHS warehouse and a prison.
As per the investigation, the NHS owes the King’s duchy £11 million over 15 years for renting a warehouse that stores ambulances, £1.5 million from the Dartmoor prison – paid by the Ministry of Justice, and around £17.6 million from commercial properties over the past decade in London, Milton Keynes and Cornwall.
King Charles has also inherited a substantial personal fortune through his mother, although her will remains private until 2112, so we’re highly unlikely to witness the unveiling. However, the portfolio of blue-chip shares and bonds is estimated to be worth £125 million, while all the late Queen’s horses could fetch at least £27 million.
How much tax does King Charles pay?
We don’t know how much tax King Charles pays. Legally, the monarch is not obliged to pay any taxes at all. However, the Queen began to pay income and capital gains tax on a “voluntary basis” in 1993, following years of growing disquiet about the blanket exemption.
King Charles has let it be known that he intends to do the same, and in the past, he has voluntarily paid tax on income from the Duchy of Cornwall.
Under the same agreement, brokered by John Major’s government, the monarch pays income tax on revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and there is no inheritance tax payable on any assets passed from the Queen to her son and successor. If she has left private wealth to other members of her family – as is likely – those assets will be subject to inheritance tax.
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