How Much Is King Charles III Worth?

King Charles has recently inherited more than £625M from his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II which includes a portfolio of land and regal estates, jewels, paintings and private investments. The transfer of wealth has made headlines around the world due to its exemption of any inheritance tax and it has left many wondering just how much the new King is worth.

King Charles III oversees a portfolio of assets held in Trust for the Kingdom which sources believe ranges anywhere from £20BN – £60BN. This includes billions of pounds in investments, palaces, jewels and art that the King will never actually own.

The single most valuable asset is a real estate portfolio worth over £15BN of which the Royal Family are awarded 25% of all net profits. This is known as the Sovereign Grant and is one source of income for the new King. In the year 2019 to 2020, this amounted to $99.6M (£87M) but it is not his only source of wealth.

The some £625M in assets that King Charles III inherited includes the Queen’s castle in Balmoral and Sandringham. It also includes the Royal Philatelic Collection which includes the world’s most comprehensive collection of stamps, cars including the Bentley State Limousine, horses, jewellery and artworks including a prize painting reportedly worth more than £15M.

Despite the vast amount of wealth and assets inherited, the King will not pay a shilling of inheritance tax thanks to a 1993 agreement with the UK government that exempts the transfers of property from one sovereign to another. He also has other revenue streams.

There is the Privy Purse which covers official expenditures, then there are rights held within many of the estates held by the King during his reign including the Scottish seabed, rural estates and the rights to fish wild salmon and extract naturally occurring gold and silver in Scotland. There are also at least nine palaces, castles and residences owned by the King in Trust and of course, he has access to a vast amount of private assets including cars, private jets, castles, watches and other extravagant items that while never owning, he will be able to use and enjoy during his reign.

Aside from Royal Assets, the King owns the UK’s largest organic food company in partnership with Waitrose and in fact, made much of his own fortune through the Duchy of Cornwall which, under his leadership, expanded to a worth of more than £1BN including commercial properties and land amounting to a third of the size of Greater London.

While there is no definitive figure out there to determine how much the King is worth, with more than £600M worth of assets to his name, £20BN – £60BN more under his management, a range of private assets at his disposal and a variety of profit-making organisations and rights under his wing, we can only imagine this figure reaches into the billions.