Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia will officially be part of the Royal Family, but their status as minors and the absence of a full-time official schedule and their own team have prevented them from having their own salaries until now. Some media have shown that the two receive weekly payments from their parents, something that is logically impossible to verify. But Leonor’s transition to adulthood raises the question again: How much does the Princess of Asturias earn?
Since 2020, the year in which the king emeritus completely fell out of the budgets of the Royal House, only three members of the family have received anything similar to the salary: King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, and Queen Emeritus Sofia of Greece. Just over half a million euros between the three this year, 2023: 269,296 euros gross for the king, 148,015 euros gross for Queen Letizia, and 121,186 euros for Sofia. The daughters of the kings are still finishing their training, so they are not expected to receive an official salary anytime soon. Their parents are responsible for their expenses and allowances through their own salary, without their own allocation. Something that also means that they reject other income, like the 417 euros salary that Leonor would have received at the General Military Academy as a cadet.
Her coming of age didn’t change things either; although Leonor was already a formal heir to the Crown, she had years of military and university training ahead of her before having an agenda the same as his parents or grandmother. Likewise, there is still a long way to go before we know what his sister Sofia’s decision is in her life. His father, for example, did not receive his own assignment as Prince of Asturias until he was 30, a sign that we are still talking about the distant future.
The references are also not very applicable: the past princesses, Christina and Elena, ceased to be part of the Royal Family when Felipe became Head of State, but they have had their own jobs for years (Elena since 2008 at the Mapfre Foundation and Cristina at La Caixa since the 90s) and are seen gradually narrowing their agendas in the name of the kings, most active during the 80s. In those years, of course, transparency was not the strong suit of the Royal House, so their activities, if any, were not public, but Felipe said that it is possible that they don’t have their own game. Queen Sofia’s allowance, however, gives an idea of how much Infanta Sofía could earn if she decided to temporarily take on her grandmother’s role.
It is possible to know more or less how much Leonor will earn the day she starts her “work” activity as a princess. When the Royal Family began to destroy its budgets more than a decade ago, Felipe was still the Prince of Asturias. And his annual allowance consists of 50% of what King Juan Carlos pays. A measure that was active until the abdication of Juan Carlos and could have the same reflection if Leonor dedicated herself full-time to the royal agenda With the policy of transparency implemented by King Felipe to restore the image of the institution, the salary of the two can be shown to the staff of the Royal House when they give (or when they give it, in the case of Sofía, whose position has no established constitutional obligation) the step. For Leonor, with the introductions, that means we earn 134,963 euros gross per year now, an amount halfway between her mother and her grandmother.
However, the final decision rests with Felipe when the time comes. Every year, the government assigns a part of the general state budgets to the royal family, and it is the institution that decides how to manage them. In 2023, for example, there will be almost 8.2 million euros, of which more than half (4.7 million euros) will be used to pay the staff of the House and members of the Royal Family. In the end, the future salary of his daughters will depend only on the will of Felipe de Borbón.
