There are renovation projects that result in the occupants moving in and there are renovation projects that cost £369 million of public money and result in nobody moving in, and Buckingham Palace is currently the second kind, which was revealed the same week the Royal Family’s total expenditure rose by 40 percent to £117.2 million in a single year.
The 2025/26 royal accounts, released this week and covered by GB News, show the official net expenditure by the monarchy at £117.2 million, up from £85.2 million the year before, a 37.5 percent increase driven primarily by property maintenance, which cost £67.5 million compared to £41.2 million the previous year. Prince William’s trip to Saudi Arabia in February was the single most expensive royal visit at £130,106. The King carried out more than 700 public engagements across the UK, a 17 percent increase. His private income rose to £25.2 million from £24.4 million. The anti-monarchy group Republic, per GB News, declared that “royal finances are out of control and Parliament needs to act to slash the annual budget to below £10million.”
The £369 million figure, per GB News, involves upgrades and essential maintenance at Buckingham Palace specifically. Despite this investment, the King and Queen will not be moving into the iconic residence. No royals are likely to live there. The Palace is being renovated. The royals are not in it. The cost is £369 million. This is the current status of the building that is, globally, the most recognized address of the British monarchy.
This information arrived the same week King Charles voluntarily published his personal tax bill for the first time in royal history, a transparency initiative the Palace described as modernization and which arrived after a YouGov poll found nearly half of Britons consider the royals poor value for money. The poll preceded the accounts by one news cycle. The accounts show a 40 percent increase.
William’s most expensive single trip was to Saudi Arabia. The NHS has been charged over £11 million to store ambulances in a Duchy of Lancaster warehouse. Property maintenance alone costs more than the anti-monarchy group believes the entire institution should cost annually. The Palace is worth £369 million in renovations. Nobody lives there.
When the institution publishes its first-ever voluntary tax disclosure and simultaneously reveals a 40 percent spending increase and a £369 million renovation of a building nobody will occupy, what exactly is being made transparent?
Sources
GB News: Royal Family net expenditure rises by nearly 40% in one year
