The British royal family has amassed one of the largest fortunes in the country. This is an indisputable fact. But the sources from which the Windsors generate millions in income each year are largely opaque, obscured by complex financial structures and favorable tax deals between the British state and Buckingham Palace.

But now an in-depth investigation by Channel 4 and Sunday time has finally succeeded in revealing the source of the annual fortune that King Charles and his son and heir William earning from their real estate holdings and exploitation rights to their Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.

The King and Prince William pocketed for their personal use profits of €60 million generated by leasing land to public hospitals, schools, prisons, military installations, ports and riverbanks for mooring and unloading, as well as land for electrical cables and fuel lines. This is an exorbitant sum partly due to a tax privilege situation which exempts them from capital gains and corporate tax, not to mention the fact that they are completely sheltered from hypothetical expropriations for public works.

Royal land for 10 centuries

Many tourists walking through the upscale Regent Street area of ​​central London are unaware that much of the land they are walking on is owned by the British royal family or to another aristocratic family who continue to make substantial profits from their real estate holdings.

The Crown ceded much of its property to the government almost three centuries ago. The UK Treasury manages the Crown Estate, which includes thousands of hectares of urban and rural land across the country. The Treasury pays a percentage of this income to the Royal Household each year to cover official expenses relating to state events, receptions, visits, public events and staff maintenance. The amount generated for 2025 will be around 157 million euros. This contrasts somewhat with the official spending of European royal families which in the case of Spain amount to less than 8.5 million euros.

The British Parliament authorized the royal family to retain ownership and management of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. The first covers the private expenses of the monarch: those of Elizabeth II before her death and now those of King Charles; the Duchy of Cornwall covers the private expenses of the heir to the crown, the Prince of Wales. When this decision was made, the income generated from their real estate was not excessive. In 1960, each of the duchies brought in around 6 million euros per year, a sum which today amounts to almost 30 million euros.

Together they cover approximately 728 square kilometers, spread across England and Wales. These are lands conquered and retained by different monarchs since the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Over five months, Sunday time and Channel Four investigated public records, checked business addresses and commercial register data, and requested information from dozens of tenants or companies leasing land. The results were then fed into a computer program which compiled details of the two duchies’ 5,410 property assets.

The data, which Buckingham Palace has refused to release for decades, shows a huge property fortune. According to the list of British millionaires Sunday time is prepared each year, the fortune of King Charles amounts to more than 720 million euros.

A hospital, a prison and at least four schools

No public institution escapes the financial tentacles of the Crown, according to the investigation. The Windsors generate real estate income, charging either the central government, its various ministries, local authorities, non-governmental organizations and private companies: tolls for the passage of bridges, for the navigation of boats, for electric cables or gas pipes, or for the installation of wind turbines. farms.

Dartmoor Prison pays the Crown around €1.8 million a year in rent to house 640 low-risk offenders. Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital in London pays the Windsors almost €1 million each year for the use of land used to park their ambulances.

Devon pays the Duchy of Cornwall almost €380,000 each year to rent the land where Princetown Community Primary School is located. Other schools, such as Farrington Gurney in Bath (€71,000) or Welton Primary School (€4,500) also pay an annual rent.

The British Ministry of Defense pays millions for the use of the facilities of the Royal Navy Britannia School at Dartmouth, where King Charles and William were cadets (1 million euros per year). A few kilometers away, on the same coast, the government pays €12,000 per year for the right to refuel the fleet of nuclear submarines in Plymouth.

Charles and William voluntarily pay income tax at the maximum rate of 45%. However, they are not willing to provide data. The last details provided are from 2022, when the king paid 7 million euros; this represents just 25% of the revenue generated that year by the Duchy of Lancaster, after applying legal deductions and exemptions.

Register for our weekly newsletter to get more English media coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition