In her end of the year speech, Queen Margrethe of Denmark took the world by storm when she announced that she would abdicate the throne in favour of her son Crown Prince Frederik.
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Quickly after the news reached the UK, some opinion pieces suggested that King Charles III should eventually follow in her footsteps and let Prince William become monarch. Though this is unlikely it doesn’t mean that the two royal families don’t share similarities. For one both King Charles and Queen Margrethe are descendants of Queen Victoria.
However, that shared ancestry isn’t enough to put the two families on equal footing when it comes to their net worth. Let’s see why there’s such a difference in net worths.
The two Royal Families’ net worths
According to The Sun the ‘Danish royal family has an estimated net worth of $40 million’ which equates to around £32 million.
For mere mortals this is a lot of money, but in the world of royal families this is actually very little. To give you some context, according to Economic Timesthe Royal Family of Saudi Arabia is worth $1.2 trillion.
Economic Times ranks the British Royal Family at number 5 with a net worth of $88 billion (around £69 billion). However, that estimated net worth from the publication doesn’t match Forbes’ estimation. The American business magazine estimates their net worth at $28 billion (roughly £21.3 billion)—still a very hefty amount.
Not to mention that this doesn’t include Queen Elizabeth’s personal wealth, which was passed down to her heirs.
Different sources of wealth
The British Royal Family
The difference in net worths is so great due to many reasons. For instance, as Cosmopolitan reports, The Firm’s assets are wide and diverse. According to the publication the main source of wealth for the British Royal Family is The Crown’s Estate which is a collection of ‘lands and holdings’ allegedly worth around $19.5 billion.
The British Family also enjoys the Sovereign Grant which ‘for 2021-22, (...) represented £1.29 per person in the UK’. Though it may seem little said like this, The Guardian explains that it sums up to £86.3 million. The publication specifies that the Sovereign Grant ‘is used to fund official travel, property maintenance and the operating costs of the monarch’s household.’
Another pool of income is the Duchy of Lancaster which ‘owns more than 18,000 hectares of land in England and Wales, the majority of which is in Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, and which including farms, homes and commercial properties.’ In that regard, there is also the Duchy of Cornwall.
The Danish Royal Family
On the opposite side, the Royal Family of Denmark is mostly dependent on ‘royal provisions that are part of the state budget and are granted by the Danish Parliament every year’ reports The Sun.
Moreover, Your Danish Life writes that the royal residences in Denmark are owned by the state and are put ‘at the disposal of the reigning monarch’. Though these residences are not the royals’, they still do own residences in the world privately.
There is also one last thing to consider. As much as the Danish Royal Family is loved in their country, the British royals enjoy worldwide attention which also boosts their income as well as the UK’s economy.
Read more:
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Sources:
Economic Times: Richest royal families from around the world
Cosmopolitan: Inside the British Royal Family’s Eye-Popping Net Worth and How “the Firm” Makes Billions
The Guardian: The sovereign’s wealth: UK royal family’s finances – explained
The Sun: Who is Margrethe II and what is the net worth of the Danish royal family?
YourDanishLife: The Danish Royals may seem rich but they actually don’t own much
