The Cost of a Coronation

The coronation of King Charles III will take place at Westminster Abbey in London on Saturday, May 6. As a state function, the event is traditionally mostly paid for by parliament, using taxpayers money. This has drawn heavy criticism among some in the United Kingdom, given the fact the country is currently engulfed in a cost of living crisis, with skyrocketing food and energy prices.

While Buckingham Palace has not yet announced an official figure for how much the coronation will cost, it has been speculated and widely reported that it will hit between £50-£100 million. If these figures are correct, it could be the most expensive British coronation of at least the past 200 years. Euronews reports that the significantly higher price tag is partly due to the added costs of security.

The following chart uses data compiled by the UK news site inews to show the relative costs of past coronations in the United Kingdom. George VI had the second most expensive coronation on the chart after Charles III, costing £454,000 in 1937, which equates to £24.8 million when accounting for today’s inflation. According to inews, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation cost £912,000 in 1953, equating to £20.5 million today. However, The New York Times places this estimate far higher, reporting that the event cost some £1.57 million at the time, which would be closer to £46 million today.

The cheapest event listed below was for William IV in 1831, which cost £43,000 at the time, or roughly £3.6 million in 2023.