Monarchy to receive boost of more than £45 million

The monarchy is to receive a boost of more than £45 million, with a 53% jump in its official annual income to more than £130 million.

Soaring profits from the Crown Estate to £1.1 billion mean the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which supports the official duties of the royal family , will increase from £86.3 million in 2024/2025 to £132 million in 2025/2026.

Officials said the increase will be used to help fund the final stages of the 10-year £369 million renovation of Buckingham Palace , keeping it on time and budget.

The boost will be reviewed through legislation in 2026/27 to keep funding of the royal family at a “more appropriate” level, a Palace spokesman said.

A National Audit Office report on Tuesday revealed that the Palace renovation has been well managed but structural damage and the discovery of asbestos, which led to cost increases, “could have been foreseen”.

Buckingham Palace’s annual accounts – covering the first full financial year of the King’s reign – were published on Wednesday after being delayed for a month because of the General Election.

The Sovereign Grant report revealed the royal household will take delivery of two new helicopters in 2024-25 to replace the existing 15-year-old ones.

The AgustaWestland AW139s are considered a “key component” in enabling the King and royal family to carry out their engagements, allowing access to remote areas of the UK, and they will replace the current Sikorsky helicopters.

The King’s state Bentleys are being converted to run on bio-fuel within the next year, with a view to switching to a fleet of official electric cars in the future, while solar panels have been introduced to Windsor Castle for the first time.

Gas lanterns at Buckingham Palace, which were switched off during the recent energy crisis as a cost-saving measure, are being repurposed with specially designed electrical fittings to improve their energy efficiency while also preserving their historic look and glow.

The Sovereign Grant is funded by the taxpayer in exchange for the King’s surrender of the revenue from the Crown Estate.

The rundown of royal finances – from April 1 2023 to March 31 2024 – covers the months following the King and the Princess of Wales’s double cancer diagnosis, with both away from public facing duties from January onwards.

But the accounts also span a time of celebration, with coronation and festivities celebrating the crowning of the King and Queen in May last year.

Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse, described the coronation as a “glorious moment in our national story” but added: “If that was the high point in a royal calendar that would contain many subsequent moments of significance on the public stage, then there were also moments of personal challenge for the family at home, which have affected this year’s report in a rather different way.

“In the early part of 2024 came the sad news that both His Majesty the King and the Princess of Wales would be withdrawing from public-facing duties temporarily, to prioritise their treatment and recovery from cancer.

“This inevitably impacted on the number and nature of engagements that had been planned – though may I say how encouraging it is to see the King back performing so many public duties and, more recently, the princess similarly well enough to join the King’s Birthday Parade and the men’s Wimbledon final.”

There were more than 2,300 official engagements by members of the royal family in the UK and overseas, compared with more than 2,700 last year.

The King undertook 464 official engagements despite his cancer diagnosis, with the Queen carrying out 201, of which 103 were joint engagements.

Sir Michael added: “Behind the scenes, the work of the Royal Household continued apace, even throughout the latter course of the financial year, with His Majesty still performing his full state duties, Her Majesty taking on a greater share of public engagements, and their support teams adapting swiftly to the changing circumstances.”

The number of guests at official residents however rose by 10% to more than 105,000 with over 400 events.

The King and Kate received some 27,000 messages from well-wishers, and 31,000 congratulatory messages for the coronation, amounting to 138,000 items of correspondence for the year 2023-24.

Official travel costs for the monarchy rose marginally by £0.3 million from £3.9 million to £4.2 million.]

The most expensive travel was the King and Queen’s visit to Kenya by charter flight in October, along with the related sparate staff planning visit by scheduled flights, which came to a total of £166,557.

King and Queen’s most expensive royal trips

Listed

There are 27 separate journeys by royal family members listed in the official report for 2023/24 where travel costs were at least £17,000, only eight of which involved the King.

This includes the most expensive trip in the 12 months to March 2024, the five-day state visit by the King and Queen to Kenya in October and November 2023, which had travel costs totalling £166,557.

The King was also involved in the second and third most expensive trips on the list: a three-day state visit to France with the Queen in September 2023 (£117,942) and a solo two-day journey on the royal train in June 2023 to Pickering in North Yorkshire, to mark the centenary of the Flying Scotsman (£52,013).

Of the five other journeys mentioned in the report that involved the King, the cost is given for four of them:

– A two-day trip to Northern Ireland with the Queen, by plane, in May 2023 (£32,976);

– A day trip to Liverpool with the Queen, by plane, ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest in April 2023 (£23,596);

– A flight from Aberdeen to Farnborough in September 2023, returning to a royal residence (£22,248);

– A flight from Aberdeen to Northolt in October 2023, to attend a reception in London for leaders of African nations (£22,208).

The travel costs of the King’s eighth and final journey on the list, a three-day visit to Dubai in November and December 2023 to attend the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), is not disclosed, as it was funded by the Foreign Office.

The most expensive trip not involving the King was a six-day visit by the Princess Royal to Sri Lanka in January 2024, undertaken on behalf of the Foreign Office, with travel costs of £48,112.

Aside from the visits to Kenya, France, Dubai and Sri Lanka, the only other journeys outside the UK to feature on the list are:

– A day trip by the Prince of Wales to Kuwait in December 2023, to pay condolences after the death of Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah (£41,597);

– A two-day visit to Marseille in France by the Prince and Princess of Wales in October 2023, to watch the quarter-final of the Rugby World Cup (£30,975);

– A three-day trip by the Princess Royal to Johannesburg in South Africa in February 2024, to attend the state funeral of the former president of Namibia (funded by the Foreign Office);

– A five-day visit by the Prince of Wales to Singapore in November 2023, to attend the Earthshot Prize ceremony (funded by Earthshot).

Seven of the 27 royal trips listed in the report were carried out by the Princess Royal, four were undertaken by the King, and four involved the King and Queen together.

Three trips were carried out by the Prince of Wales, with a further three by the Prince and Princess of Wales together.

Two trips involved the Duke of Edinburgh, one the Duchess of Edinburgh, one the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh together and one the Duke of Kent.

The Queen appears by herself just once on the list, for the solo trip she made to the Isle of Man and Belfast in March 2024.

Housekeeping and hospitality came in at £2.6 million, up from £2.4 million last year.

But overall expenditure fell by 17% or £18.4 million from £107.5 million in 2022/23 to £89.1 million, with the Palace putting the change mostly due to an anticipated decrease in expenditure on the Palace renovation program in 2023-24.

The report also showed £600,000 from the Sovereign Grant was spent on the coronation and events surrounding it last year, with the total cost to the Sovereign Grant overall coming to £800,000.

The figure covered internal costs such as staffing, Palace receptions, plus any furnishings or costumes which be reused later on, including the readjusting of the Imperial State Crown and the King and Queen’s coronation robes.

Palace officials also confirmed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s former home Frogmore Cottage remains empty and there are no new tenants.

The funding of the monarchy was switched last year from 25% to 12% of the Crown Estate’s net profits because of the rising income expected from the estate’s new offshore wind deals.

The King asked for the wind farm profits to be used for the wider public good.

If the 25% formula had continued the monarchy would have received £275 million instead in 2025/26.

Despite the percentage reduction, Crown Estate financial figures published on Wednesday showed the profits in 2023-24 were £1.1 billion, meaning the Sovereign Grant – based on funds two years in arrears – will be £132 million in 2025-26 – £45.7 million more than in 2024/25.

With the new formula, £143 million will be redirected for the wider good of the nation.