Kirsty Mckenzie
WHO wouldn’t like to live like a princess? Or a king for that matter? The jewels, the butlers, the palaces – it might sound like the stuff of fairytales but for Royal family across Europe it is very much reality.
With a life filled with so many luxuries, it’s safe to assume that all the royals are rolling in dough. But since they don’t exactly have the most typical of jobs (not to mention how complicated royal family finances are) it can be tricky to work out how much they earn.
Recently there was international uproar when it was announced that Holland’s Princess Amalia will start earning more than €23,000 a month, tax free, when she turns 18.
The sum will cover her every need and whim, including staff and representation expenses.
Closer to home, tongues were set wagging when King Felipe VI announced that he had disinherited himself from his father and cut Juan Carlos’s annual stipend back in March amidst the outbreak of allegations over the former king’s financial dealings.
Despite renouncing his personal inheritance, King Felipe still has an enormous net worth as sovereign of Spain, with business insiders suggest he has a net worth of around £16m.
Each year the Spanish Royal Family publish their accounts for the year on online with a breakdown of their spending habits.
According to the numbers, the Spanish state has authorised around €7,887,150 (£7.1 million) to cover all the monarchs’ needs including the salaries of all his staff, food and travel expenses this year alone.
The King’s own salary is taken from the budget – and he reigns in around €20,000 a month, the highest earning royal in Spain.
His net worth is predicted to be around the £16million mark, thanks to his assets that include eight palaces, five country homes as well as ten monasteries and covenants.
In comparison, Queen Elizabeth has a net worth around £350m.
The 93-year-old monarch is the wealthiest member of the British royal family, and while famously frugal, her biggest expense was believed to be horses.
And while her portfolio spans everything from art to diamonds, her ranking on the Sunday Times Rich List has dropped 30 places since 2018.
The 2020 rankings see the Queen take 372nd place with The Times revealed that they had knocked ?£20 million off her estimated fortune since last year, due to the market crash affecting her investments.
Not that she or her family are struggling, husband Prince Philip is reportedly worth somewhere around £30 million while son and heir to the throne Prince Charles
Meanwhile, Grand Duke Henri, of Luxembourg, is thought to be the wealthiest sovereign in Europe, with a net worth of £3.2 billion.
A close second is Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, worth £2.8bn, and then Prince Albert II, of Monco, said to have a small fortune of £809m.
