How Much Money Does The Queen Make? Elizabeth II To Receive $97M To Restore Buckingham Palace

Queen Elizabeth II was set to get a little more in her paycheck this year— $43 million more, to be exact. The queen received $54.6 million in tax-free income last year, but this year, she’ll be getting around $97 million.

The money is what’s known as a “sovereign grant,” a type of expense account designed to cover travel, security, staff, upkeep and other costs.

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That money was scheduled to go toward renovations at Buckingham Palace: a residence that, at 775 rooms, needed extensive repairs. Staff planned to fix or replace about 100 miles of electric cables more than 60 years old, lead pipes, thousands of light fixtures and wall outlets and 2,500 radiators, according to NBC News.

The restoration would likely take at least 10 years and the queen planned to remain at the palace while the work was being done.

“The project seeks to prevent a serious risk of fire, flood and damage to both the building and the priceless Royal Collection of art belonging to the nation,” the U.K. Treasury said in a statement last year.

The sovereign grant, however, isn’t the Queen’s only income. In addition, she receives what’s known as a “privy purse,” or a basic salary. The privy purse comes out to about $16 million per year, according to CNN. The state grant given to the queen during the last fiscal year came out to be about $0.83 per person, official Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Alan King told CNN.

“When you consider that against what the queen does and represents for this country,” he said Tuesday. “I believe it represents excellent value for money.”

The queen reportedly spends most of the sovereign grant money on staff and property maintenance: at the end of last year, only $1.1 million of the initial $54.6 million was left over. That money goes into a rainy day account for the future.

While the queen does not explicitly disclose personal investments, her personal fortune was estimated to be about $490 million in 2016, according to the Sunday Times. The queen did not make the list of 300 richest Brits for the first time in 2015.

While many acknowledge the necessity of expenses to maintain and restore Buckingham Palace, others said the exorbitant cost was excessive. Citing recent events like the Grenfell Tower Fire which killed at least 79 people earlier in June, critics said the money could be put to better use.

“When our police, [health care system], schools and fire services are struggling,” Republic CEO Graham Smith told CNN Tuesday. “How can we continue to justify this huge waste of money?”

A petition began circulating in November after outrage over the publicly-funded repairs spread to the internet, citing issues with the nation’s housing market.

“Now the Royals expect us to dig deeper to refurbish Buckingham Palace,” the petition said. “The Crown’s wealth is inestimable. This is, in a word, outrageous.”