How King Charles and Prince William's royal estates earn millions in rent from taxpayers

The two royal Duchies of and Lancaster, owned by and , earn millions of pounds in rent from the .

Details of how the two most senior members of the make £50m a year from their inherited estates can be revealed for the first time.

Working with Vera Productions and Dispatches, we obtained from the Land Registry the addresses of thousands of properties owned by these secretive private estates.

They show how the Duchy earns £1.5m a year in - or £37.5m over 25 years - for HMP Dartmoor, a prison that now lies empty due to high levels of radon gas in the cells.

Seven pay the Duchy more than £600,000 in rent over the lifetime of their leases.

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The Duchy of Lancaster will earn £11.4m from a 15-year lease on a warehouse to Guys & St Thomas Trust for its ambulance fleet.

Campaigner Guy Shrubsole, author of Who Owns England, said: “I think this asks quite searching questions about how they are making their profits.

“Why are there not peppercorn rents or social rents being charged for the NHS for example?”

The Duchy of Cornwall also earns money from the military that both Charles and William trained in.

The refused to reveal how much it paid the Duchy for the right to train troops on its land in Dartmoor.

But documents reveal the Duchy has received more than a million pounds from the Navy since 2004 for jetties and moorings for warships.

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King Charles III was for many years a patron of Macmillan Cancer Support but the Duchy of Cornwall earned £22m in rent from an office block in London which housed a number of charities including Macmillan, and Marie Curie.

The documents also reveal how the Duchy of Lancaster, owned by Charles since 2022, is set to profit from a new generation of wind farms.

It owns the coastline from Barrow-in-Furness to the River Mersey and five leases reveal the Duchy will received at least £28m from power cables crossing this land.

A Duchy of Cornwall spokesperson it was “a private estate with a commercial imperative”.

The Duchy of Lancaster said it “operates as a commercial company” and that “while His Majesty The King takes a close interest in the work of the Duchy, the day-to-day management of the portfolio is the responsibility of the Council and executive team”.