The personal wealth of Britain’s King Charles III personal wealth has jumped by £30 million ($40 million) to £640 million in the last year, making him as rich as former prime minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murphy, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.
Charles, who acceded to the throne in 2022, ranks joint 238th in the list of the UK’s 350 wealthiest people and families, up 20 places from 258th in 2024.
Calculations by the newspaper’s Rich List suggest the monarch is £140 million richer than David and Victoria Beckham, who are said to be worth £500 million, with former England captain Beckham being Britain’s richest sports star.
The 76-year-old monarch, who has faced a challenging past year as he continues to undergo treatment for cancer, has benefited from the investment portfolio he inherited from his late mother for the bulk of his wealth, the newspaper said.
His private estates Sandringham in Norfolk and Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, which belonged to Queen Elizabeth II, are part of his financial fortune.
Only personal assets are included by The Sunday Times when assessing the sovereign’s wealth.
This does not include the Crown Estate, which saw soaring profits thanks to wind farm deals, the Duchy of Lancaster estate, nor the Crown Jewels which are held in trust by the King for the nation.
The late queen’s wealth was said to be £370 million in 2022, with Charles now estimated to be worth £270 million more than his mother, rising from £610 million to £640 million in 2025.
The personal wealth of Sunak and Murty dropped £11 million from £651 million to £640 million.
Since leaving Downing Street, the former prime minister has taken a part-time role at Stanford University and signed up to the Washington Speakers Bureau, and the couple launched a charity to tackle numeracy problems in the UK.
Murty has a stake in Infosys, the Indian IT giant co-founded by her billionaire father.
As the Prince of Wales, Charles received a private income of around £23 million a year from the Duchy of Cornwall.
It was used in part for non-official expenditure for himself and his family and for the official cost of personal staff, his office and official residences.
The news outlet’s annual rich list was released on Friday, and will be included in a 76-page special edition of its Sunday magazine.
It reveals the wealth of the 350 richest individuals and families in the UK, based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies.
The 37th list registers the third consecutive drop and the biggest fall in the number of UK billionaires in its history.