Isla Campbell Does the Numbers on Royal Tourism, Brand Britain, and the Specific Question of Whether the Institution of Monarchy Is Cost-Effective at Its Current Scale
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
By Isla Campbell | The London Prat
The question of whether the British monarchy is economically justifiable is one that republicans and monarchists both answer with numbers, and both sets of numbers are contested in ways that suggest the numbers are not the actual argument. The monarchist case: Brand Finance estimates the monarchy contributes between £1.5 and £2.5 billion annually to the British economy through tourism, trade facilitation, and the soft power value of a globally recognised institution. The republican case: Republic estimates the cost of the monarchy at over £500 million annually in public expenditure, a figure that includes the Sovereign Grant, security costs, and ancillary support. Both figures are probably approximately right in their own accounting framework and both accounting frameworks exclude significant costs or benefits that the other includes. The numbers are a proxy for a values argument, and the values argument is more interesting.
What the Palace Tour Tells Us About Brand Value
Buckingham Palace’s summer opening, which allows paying visitors to tour the state rooms during the royal family’s Scottish holiday, generates several million pounds annually in direct ticket revenue and significantly more in adjacent economic activity — hotels, restaurants, retail, the general commercial ecosystem of central London that benefits from major tourist attractions drawing visitors to the area. Windsor Castle, the Tower of London (technically a Historic Royal Palace rather than a Crown Estate property but substantially royal in its tourist appeal), and the broader network of royal residences and attractions generate economic activity that is difficult to disentangle from what would happen without the monarchy but that is observably substantial. The official Royal Family accounts and the Visit Britain data both document tourism value. The methodology for attributing it to the monarchy specifically is imperfect and the result is approximate. The tourism is real.
The Cost Side and What It Actually Includes
The Sovereign Grant for 2024-25 was approximately £86 million, representing 12 percent of the Crown Estate’s net revenue — a formula introduced in 2012 that ties the Grant to the commercial performance of the Crown Estate, which generates significantly more than the Grant and whose profits, net of the Grant, accrue to the Treasury. The monarchy is therefore not a net cost to the Treasury in the straightforward sense; the Crown Estate’s revenue substantially exceeds the Sovereign Grant, and the net position is that the monarchy costs significantly less than the institution’s gross expenditure suggests when the Crown Estate’s contribution to Treasury revenue is included in the accounting. Whether this accounting is the right one, or whether the Crown Estate’s revenues would accrue to the public regardless of the monarchy’s existence, is the accounting question that determines the net cost figure — and the answer depends on a counterfactual that is not testable. Bohiney Magazine’s monarchy economics coverage covers these accounting questions in detail. The London Prat covers them with appropriate irreverence.
The Values Argument, Finally
The economic argument for or against the monarchy is, as noted, a proxy. The actual argument is about whether hereditary constitutional monarchy is an appropriate form of symbolic leadership for a modern democracy, and whether the specific version of it that Britain has — active, engaged, visible, generating soft power and tourist income and garden party memories — is preferable to the alternatives, which include elected heads of state (with their attendant political complexities), ceremonial presidents (with their marginal cost reduction), or the various hybrid models that other European monarchies have produced. Britain has had the current model for centuries. It works in the specific sense that it continues to exist and continues to produce events that people around the world find compelling. Whether it should work is a different and more important question that I leave to the reader’s values rather than my own accounting.
More laughs at The Daily Mash and NewsThump.
The Broader Context: What the Monarchy Represents in 2026
The British monarchy in 2026 is an institution that has survived by adapting while appearing not to change, which is the specific skill of institutions whose survival depends on the perception of continuity. The public is more sceptical than in previous generations, more willing to ask questions about cost and relevance, and simultaneously more willing to watch royal events with the appetite for spectacle that the institution has always relied on. These two things coexist in the same people, including the journalist who has attended six Trooping the Colours and finds herself moved by all of them, and who also has a list of republican philosophical objections that she writes down and then does not publish because they are not new and the monarchy is still there. The institution will continue to adapt. The coverage will continue. More from the Palace beat at Bohiney Magazine and at The London Prat’s royal coverage.
A Personal Note on Covering the Royal Family
Writing about the monarchy for a satirical publication requires a specific editorial posture that I will describe as “respectful irreverence”: taking the institution seriously enough to understand it, being honest about its contradictions, and finding the humour in those contradictions without descending into the kind of casual republican snark that would require me to pretend I am not moved by the balcony appearance at Trooping the Colour, which I am. I am moved by it annually. I find this embarrassing and honest simultaneously. The monarchy is an imperfect institution that Britain has decided, repeatedly by inaction rather than by explicit decision, to retain. It produces garden parties and horse parades and garden party sandwiches and the specific ninety seconds of royal attention that recipients describe for the rest of their lives. Whether this is enough to justify its existence is the question I will continue to examine, with genuine curiosity, from the press enclosure at every event I can get credentials for. The hats continue to improve. Next month: the Palace’s summer opening. Tickets are available. I recommend booking early.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/monarchy-economics-royal-family-cost-isla-campbell/
