Prince William has paid £20 million in taxes on a duchy worth £1.2 billion

On Thursday, both King Charles and Prince William released summaries of their tax returns. They “voluntarily” pay income tax, but neither had specified what they paid in taxes since QEII died in 2022. When he became Prince of Wales, William actually changed his father’s habit of disclosing information about the Duchy of Cornwall’s profits and taxable income. Well, it’s taken three-plus years and a lot of pitiful emotional-support polls, but now William has revealed how much he’s paid in income tax.

Prince William is richer than the King with a net worth via the Duchy of Cornwall of £1.2billion – and has paid more than £20 million in tax since becoming Prince of Wales, it has been revealed.

It emerged as accounts were published for the Sovereign Grant – the funding from the Treasury that is used by the royal household to pay for official duties – as well as the King’s personal fortune from the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, which Prince William inherited when he became Prince of Wales.

The figures showed for the first time that future king William is richer than his father, with a net worth via the Duchy of £1.2billion. The prince received a private income of £21.6 million in 2025-26, the latest Duchy accounts showed.

In contrast, Charles was listed in the Sunday Times Rich List as having a personal fortune of £640 million – an increase of £30 million from the previous year.

In a bid to be more transparent with the way the royal family is funded, the King and William have revealed their private tax payments. Figures show William contributed £7.76m in income and capital gains tax in 2024-25, and £8.34m in 2023-24.

It comes as it has been revealed that William has decided he will no longer personally benefit from the controversial £1.5million annual rent generated by the abandoned Dartmoor Prison. William has asked for the sum to be removed from the multimillion-pound income he receives as heir to the throne from the Duchy of Cornwall from 2026-27 onwards, with the money spent on regenerating the local community instead.

In 2024 it emerged the duchy signed a £37million deal in 2022, before Charles became King and William the Prince of Wales, to lease Dartmoor Prison to the Ministry of Justice, paying £1.5 million a year over 25 years, and a deal with the Ministry of Defence to allow the armed forces to train on Dartmoor land. But the category C prison in Devon has been empty since July 2024 after high levels of radon, a toxic gas that occurs naturally in soil and rocks and can cause lung cancer, were recorded in prisoners’ accommodation.

A community-led regeneration fund will be launched next year to offer social, economic and environmental benefits to Princetown, the isolated rural community next to the prison.

[From The Daily Mirror]

First of all, I’m glad William is no longer profiting from the Dartmoor prison situation. Second of all, William is not “worth” £1.2 billion. The Duchy of Cornwall, a feudal real-estate empire of slums, farms, seabeds, coastlines and parking lots, is worth that much. It’s not William’s personal piggy bank, even if he thinks it is. Even if he thinks he can just sell off duchy land and tuck the profits away god-knows-where. I hope Parliament continues to pull at the Windsors’ financial strings too, because most of these duchy holdings should be government-owned or publicly owned.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Kensington Palace’s social media. Screencaps courtesy of YouTube and AppleTV+.

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30 Responses to “Prince William has paid £20 million in taxes on a duchy worth £1.2 billion”

  1. Nicole says:

    So not even 10 percent. That’s depressing.

    • Tn democrat says:

      It truly is depressing how little he actually pays when the working class struggle with necessities because so much of their income is eaten up paying taxes. Comparing the percentage billionaires and corporations in America pay compared to working class folks like teachers and nurses is horrifying. Sooooo many ultra rich citizens and corporations paid nothing AND blatantly bribed mango to get huge government contracts paid for by the working class. The tide of public opinion is beginning to turn against Willy though. Ten years of cover-ups and kids gloves coverage are over. Hopefully the astrology post from a few days ago is true and he faces some music finally.

    • Cee says:

      Less than 2%

    • bisynaptic says:

      It’s income tax, not wealth tax.

  2. Seaside22 says:

    I can’t math, and am not trying to stand up for him – but isn’t this fairly routine? Because $1.2B is total value, not annual income. If he’s getting about $20M a year in profit / dividends, doesn’t paying about the same amount in taxes means he paid about 50% tax?

    • LRB says:

      Wonder if he pays national insurance as every other person earning an income has to do – or is this classed as dividend to reduce the tax bill and evade NI?

    • ashelton400@gmail.com says:

      £20m over three years, so less than £7m a year. A normal rate of profit might be 3-4%, so over £30-40m income a year. But let’s say he earns £20m a year–£7m tax payments from that is a tax rate of about 35%. Many in Britain pay a 48% tax rate, and the highest marginal tax rate is 68% (google “tax trap).

      He’s exempt from paying inheritance and capital gains taxes on duchy asset transfers, putatively because he doesn’t “own” the duchy, which are instead public lands that are kept in trust. But he sells duchy lands, reinvests, and maybe even pockets some of the proceeds. Private landowners and businesses can’t compete with this. How is this right?

  3. suoutdoors says:

    20 millions since he is Prince of Wales? Since autumn 2022? I will weep for him if there’s spare time at my hands… Quite busy, however.

  4. Dee(2) says:

    And their press is more worried about $60 candles. The lack of transparency on how this money that is technically coming from property ” owned” by the public is being used should be a constant drum beat and the biggest story in every newspaper.

    It shouldn’t be relegated to The Guardian or Byline Times for extensive coverage, and there is no way that you should be able to go to a newspaper in the UK right now and they’re 40 stories about Harry and Meghan but two or three stories about this.

    The constant question should be why are they getting so much money? You haven’t seen Kate in over a week and the last thing you saw her at was a horse race. You last saw William riding around on the bus, for something that technically doesn’t even fall under the purview of his ” royal duties”. There is no reason that they should need or deserve more importantly, the amount of money that they are getting funneled to them.

  5. Lorelei says:

    That picture of him concentrating on trying to hammer a nail into place is hysterical. It is so obvious that this man has never done even the simplest tasks, ever, in his life. Mortifying.

    • Midnightatthemuseum says:

      Apart from having been a rescue helicopter pilot and saving lives, of course. Which he would still be doing if he hadn’t been summoned for royal duties.

      • Lurker says:

        You mean when he was a copilot, and others had to cover his shifts because he couldn’t be arsed to show up? The job he quitted for the strain on his mental health was too much to bear?

      • BeanieBean says:

        Yeah, co-pilot, barely showed up for his shifts & lost his wings because he didn’t have the requisite hours. But sure, he saved lives. 🙄

  6. Brassy Rebel says:

    It should be a scandal that this lazy slug is at least technically a billionaire. Where is the outrage?

    • Tiny says:

      The outrage is saved for M next As Ever drop.
      Tabloids belong in dustbin.

    • BeanieBean says:

      And the GALL to call this ‘personal wealth’ while at the same time they go on & on about service & commitment & blah blah blah and no, no, no, it all belongs to the Crown, you see, it’s not his, it’s the Crown’s. 🙄

    • Wildrose says:

      Where is the outrage?

      I was swearing so much that even my IPad thingey agreed with me!

      Check out the howling Article on the Wails Propaganda sheet – The Daily Fail. They were trying to preach to the paupers that it isn’t Baldy Wails fault and how “transparent” they (Mr and Mrs Wails) were being about the money. Mind you even the off shore swindling was referred to by the livid “subjects” and the transparency is Total Bull Sh*t of course.

      I read it at about 2 a.m. this morning, went straight to the comments and boy did many get stuck in. By now they have probably closed down the comments section like they do when there is “No Nice Sucking Up” views to make the Wails feel better.

      The money tree, along with the pithy explanation were well and truly being burned to the ground.

      Both the Wails two are lower than a snakes belly and the day is not far off when that pissed off snake sinks its fangs in.

  7. Deneph says:

    And let’s not forget that £1000 he donated out of the kindness of his heart. He’s a giver, that one.

  8. Becks1 says:

    So 20 million since becoming Duke of Cornwall? After “business expenses”
    Are accounted for? Gee what a winner.

    The emphasis on William being richer than Charles is weird. He’s not. They’re conflating the worth of the duchy of Cornwall with Charles’ personal money (or duchy income? It’s hard to tell). The two aren’t the same and can’t be directly compared. William does not own the duchy as pointed out.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Yeah, I’d like to see someone with real knowledge & understanding of Britain’s financial systems to review this information & explain it all. I don’t the Mirror’s telling us anything useful. And I don’t think William provided any info that’s useful.

  9. QuiteContrary says:

    So it appears that both the U.S. and England aren’t taxing the wealthy nearly enough.

  10. YankeeDoodles says:

    If they’re saying he’s paid £20 million in tax — total — since inheriting the Duchy of Cornwall in September 2022, I would need to break it down. Numbers on their own tell you very little and they can be presented in a way that is highly selective. Our fiscal year is April 6th to April 5th of the following year. So. If you break down the sum William was liable for Duchy income taxed at a capital gains rate for about half his first year as PoW plus three subsequent years. £20 million divided by 3.5 = £5.70 million per year. That is a taxable rate of 28.5%. As UK taxpayers in the highest income tax band my husband and I pay an effective rate of 60% — one other commentator mentioned the tax trap, which hits badly as soon as you cross the £100,000 threshold. The UK tax system is highly progressive at the low to mid range of the wage scale until it pivots and becomes highly punitive at the upper end, in terms of income tax and salaries, not assets or dividends, much less trusts, which has the effect of punishing higher earners and driving them out of the UK. It creates a bottleneck for professional ambitious people. Then it becomes obscenely relaxed — to quote Peter Mandelson — about millionaires and billionaires, who can pretty much do what they like. It’s wildly inconsistent. But as a rule, I’d say if the royal family is to pay tax at all, it should be paying at least as much as the most highly-taxed UK citizens.

  11. BeanieBean says:

    There’s something really weird about this part, maybe due to poor writing: ‘In 2024 it emerged the duchy signed a £37million deal in 2022, … to lease Dartmoor Prison to the Ministry of Justice, paying £1.5 million a year over 25 years, and a deal with the Ministry of Defence to allow the armed forces to train on Dartmoor land.’

    The Duchy leased land TO the MOJ, PAYING a million+ per year—why would the duchy pay the MOJ, wasn’t it the other way around? Also, what’s the ‘deal’ with the MOD for training? Is the MOD leasing the Dartmoor land from the MOJ or the duchy? I’m somewhat familiar with military land leases for training purposes, so this really makes no sense. You lease land from the land owner. If the landowner is the duchy, is the MOD’s deal with the duchy or the MOJ? Is the MOD ALSO paying money to the duchy? So the duchy was collecting money from both the MOJ & the MOD? And then Dartmoor is an old prison, so who owned the land when it was built? Was the MOJ paying a lease to the duchy way back then?

    And finally, how many people got sick from this crappy land? Prisoners and soldiers alike. Good gad!

  12. bisynaptic says:

    I wish they would stop misleading the public. The Duchy of Cornwall does not belong to William; he’s merely the beneficiary of its proceeds. The duchy belongs to the people of the UK.

    • Preston says:

      And that’s why he gets to pay lower taxes on it.
      It’s a private landed estate. A trust. He is in charge of it. And he is the beneficiary of its profits. But he can’t sell it, or make any major changes without running it by a trustee council. And he can’t will it to anybody he wants. If William dies or Charles dies, the oldest surviving direct heir takes over.

      But don’t kid yourself about it belonging to the public. If the UK became a republic tomorrow, Charles would still be the Duke of Lancaster and William would still be the Duke of Cornwall, and the duchies would still fall under the same rules and privileges as every other landed estate.

      • bisynaptic says:

        He’s not in charge of it—or, at least, not solely—AFAIK. There’s a Board of Directors, or somesuch (the trustee council you mentioned).

        I’m assuming that, if they were ever abolish the monarchy, they would also abolish the system of aristocracy, as well.

  13. BeanieBean says:

    Oh, hang on. There’s more funny stuff here. First, can he just say, ‘don’t count that as income ’cause I’m going to spend it this way’? I wonder what would happen if I try that. Hmm. Also, what do they mean, ‘A community-led regeneration fund will be launched next year to offer social, economic and environmental benefits to Princetown, the isolated rural community next to the prison.’ They just told is William is diverting that 1.5 million to the community, why on earth should the local community now be required to cough up even more money? ‘Community-led regeneration fund’. Bollocks.

  14. GMHQ says:

    1.2 billion pounds times 5%. Equals 60 million pounds in nominal earnings thrown off to Scooter per year. 20 million equals 33 percent effective tax rate. Probably less than his secretary or valet pays.

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