London, Thanasis Gavos

Buckingham Palace spent £107.5 million in the April 2022-March 2023 period, an increase of more than £5 million on the previous period.

Official palace accounts show increased expenses due to a series of historic milestones, including Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee last summer, her funeral in September and preparations for Charles’ recent coronation ceremony.

At the same time, the expenses for the daily operation and the ongoing renovation of the Palace increased, due to the persistently high inflation.

The result of all this was the king spending over £21 million from the royal savings, in addition to the money the royal family receives from the government, the so-called Monarch’s Allowance.

This is an amount generated from the utilization of Crown Property. The total profits from the exploitation of this property go to the government, which returns to the king a percentage (25% as of 2017, but reduced in real terms in recent years due to inflation).

Top spenders for the 12 months were palace maintenance, which cost £57.8m, and royal household staff wages, which rose by up to 6% to a total of £27.1m.

£5m was other staff costs, £4.5m utility bills, £4.3m the cost of Palace property depreciation, £4m digital services (use of computers and telecommunications), 3, 9 million for the trips and movements of the active members of the royal family (179 trips by helicopter and 65 with chartered flights) and 2.4 million for the cost of receptions and wider hospitality (95,000 guests in 107 receptions, 142 official meals and meetings for afternoon tea, 44 title ceremonies, seven large Buckingham Palace garden parties and 38 formal dinners). There was still £8.3m of expenditure for various other reasons.

Of the total expenditure of £107.5m, £86.3m was covered by the Monarch’s Allowance, which from 2021 has been set at £86.3m per year.

The rest of the costs were covered by the royal family’s fortune, which is roughly estimated at £20 billion. Most of this wealth comes from the Crown Estate, i.e. the vast collection of real estate managed by the monarchy (not considered the personal property of the individual monarch).

In this context, the revenues of 9.8 million pounds were used, mainly from the rentals of royal properties.

As noted, among the measures implemented by the new king for economy but also to support the environment was to lower the temperature of the heating in Buckingham Palace during the winter.