King Charles has disclosed he paid £12.9m in tax for 2024-2025 – becoming the first monarch to reveal their tax bill.
The level of tax paid by the King puts him in the top 100 of UK taxpayers.
The Prince of Wales declared he paid £7.76m tax over the same period, the figures in the annual royal report and accounts show.
It has also been revealed the King and Queen Camilla will continue to live in Clarence House and not move into Buckingham Palace.
The accounts show the main source of annual public funding for the Royal Household, the Sovereign Grant, is rising to just under £100m for the year 2027-28.
The accounts also show the King paid £11.7m in tax for 2023-24, while Prince William paid £8.34m for the same period.
The publication of how much tax the King and Prince William voluntarily pay was a personal decision made by both men, according to their offices.
Buckingham Palace described the move as increasing transparency and aimed to “encourage wider understanding of our accountability.”
Since the King became monarch in 2022 and William the Prince of Wales, the combined tax bill of father and son paid to HM Revenue and Customs has been more than £50m.
While the new figures show the monarch paid the highest rate of tax, they do not give any detailed breakdown of how the tax has been calculated.
Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, said this makes the King’s disclosure “highly opaque”.
“We don’t know how much of that is capital gains tax, how much is income tax,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Very importantly, we don’t know what expenses he’s deducted to come up with the figure on which he pays the tax.”
The King receives an annual income from his Duchy of Lancaster estate set up to give the monarch an independent source of money for official and private expenditure.
It is a portfolio of land, investments and properties. It provides the King with an annual income which in 2025-26 was £25.2m.
Other sources of income, liable for tax, include the King’s own investments and savings alongside money generated by his private estates, Balmoral and Sandringham.
Initially, Prince William did not release his tax payments when he became heir to the throne – but in line with his father, he has now made his payment of income and capital gains tax public.
Prince William receives an income from the Duchy of Cornwall – a billion-pound 130,000 acre hereditary estate which also includes the Oval cricket ground in London – which funds official duties, his office and private family life.
“Prince William pays income tax at the highest rate on any net surplus after those costs have been met. Those costs are independently audited to ensure that any deductions are appropriate,” said the prince’s private secretary Ian Patrick.
“The prince recognises the interest in these arrangements and the importance of appropriate transparency.”
The tax payable for 2025-2026 is still being audited and will be made public next year.
The income or any detail on private investments for both the King and Prince William has not been disclosed.
Prince William has also announced he will no longer personally benefit from the £1.5m annual rent generated by the abandoned Dartmoor Prison.
He has asked for the sum to be removed from the income of the Duchy Of Cornwall with the money instead spent on supporting the local community particularly in the rural community of Princetown close to the prison.
Dartmoor has been empty since 2024 due to high levels of the toxic gas, radon, discovered within the building.
The publication of the annual royal accounts also reveal:
