Analysis
Now we
know how much tax King Charles pays, and it is very little
Juliette
Garside
The
monarch’s declaration does not tell us much, except that his bill is lower than
for people with much smaller fortunes
Fri 26
Jun 2026 18.23 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/26/now-we-know-how-much-tax-king-charles-pays-and-it-is-very-little
The veil
of secrecy that surrounds the royal finances was nudged aside a little on
Thursday to allow the release of a new piece of information. We learned for the
first time how much the king’s annual tax bill comes to.
This was
not a full tax return. It was a two-sentence declaration, stating his tax
payable amounted to £12.9m in 2024-25, and a slightly smaller sum the year
before. His total tax payable since accession comes to £30m.
It has
been a long time coming. Unlike other citizens, the monarch is not liable for
tax, but the king and his mother before him started paying it voluntarily in
1993.
The
declaration was short on detail. We don’t know what his total income was for
those years. We don’t know the total value of his private fortune. And we have
no idea how much his tax bill was reduced by for expenses such as those
incurred performing royal duties.
The small
nugget of new information has brought to light one startling fact though. The
king’s tax bill is low, even when compared with those who have smaller
fortunes.
Thanks to
painstaking investigations by the Guardian, in its 2023 cost of the crown
series, the king’s private wealth, known as the privy purse, is estimated to be
at least £1.8bn. This includes the Duchy of Lancaster estate – a £690m land and
property portfolio handed from one monarch to the next and which provides him
with income of £25m a year; and an even larger pile of other assets, such as
cars, jewels, art and the private residences of Balmoral and Sandringham. We
have very little idea how much the king holds in financial investments, or what
the revenues from these are.
The tax
the king pays covers all of the privy purse, all £1.8bn or more of assets.
Because
we don’t know the total income, we are not able to check what the king’s
effective tax rate is, but comparisons with other taxpayers raise questions.
A scan of
this year’s Sunday Times tax list shows that the hedge fund boss Suneil Setiya,
also estimated to be worth £1.8bn, paid £114m in annual tax. This is 10 times
the sum the king paid in 2023-24.
The
musician Ed Sheeran, whose fortune at £410m is a fraction of the king’s, paid
£20m to HMRC. The author JK Rowling, worth an estimated £975m, was billed £47m
on her earnings and gains.
Even the
Manchester City footballer Erling Haaland, who is Norwegian, pays more than the
king – his most recent tax bill was £17m.
Without
more information about the size and shape of the privy purse, it is impossible
to say why the king’s bill is so low.
What we
do know is that the Duchy of Lancaster is not liable for the kinds of taxes
that might be paid by a company or a trust. The capital gains made by buying
and selling property, and the rents received from tenants, can all accumulate
and be reinvested tax free, allowing the king’s wealth to grow more quickly
than that of his subjects.
The privy
purse could be described as operating like a mini-tax haven. The assets held by
the duchy are untaxed, while the king’s other holdings are undeclared. The
palace says the king voluntarily pays capital gains on his privately held
wealth, and that the accounts are externally audited each year. They say this
part of his personal holdings remains private, as for any other citizen. But no
other citizen has such discretion over the tax they choose to pay.
The
palace was approached for comment.
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