47

So, we know Harry inherited his money from James. By descriptions from the books, it looks like he had enough money to spend during his school years with plenty to spare for later life.

Is there an estimate on how much money he had? How much would that be in muggle money? Was he extremely rich?

I'm thinking here that he could have received more than just an inheritance. For example, anonymous supporters could have given him money through the bank while he was a baby, or when he was about to go to Hogwarts, and he wouldn't have known (not even Dumbledore would have known).

Improve this question
4
  • 2
    Not enough to make the Forbes Fictional 15 forbes.com/lists/fictional15/2011/forbes-fictional-15.html
    – Iszi
    Feb 29, 2012 at 23:33
  • 5
    I'd say: not enough information to know if he would be on the list ;-)
    – Janoma
    Mar 1, 2012 at 3:14
  • 3
    He also inherited everything from sirius
    – user46509
    Jul 28, 2015 at 16:58
  • 3
    more than Ron, that's what I know
    – CHEESE
    Feb 8, 2016 at 3:07

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
32

Slytherincess has given an excellent answer if we could figure out how much Harry has. Let me give you a few clues as to how much that might be, and then let's estimate. Here's what we know.

  1. Harry had a visibly large amount of money, but not so much that he could afford to spend in on whatever he wanted. In particular, the Firebolt seemed out of his reach, although he could have bought it, it would have used a considerable amount of his cash. Estimates for the Firebolt's cost is around 400-1000 Galleons.
  2. Harry stayed for 2 weeks at the Leaky Cauldron. Rates were never mentioned, but it seemed reasonable to guess it would cost a few galleons.
  3. It seems likely that it was more than the 1000 galleons he won during the Triwizard tournament.
  4. It seems that Harry pulls around 20-30 galleons equivalent per school year. This seems to be enough to leave him with a considerable, but not insurmountable, amount after everything is done. Everything in this case is paying for his books, supplies, and other general spending money for the year.
  5. There's a fairly popular article, no longer on the web, but mentioned in sites like this, that estimates the cost of going to Hogwarts at about $50K USD/year. (EDIT- It seems there is no tuition at Hogwarts, making the cost quite a bit less.)

All in all, I'm guessing that the amount of money would be somewhere around $1 million USD, or about 20K Galleons. This is enough to do quite a bit, but while someone could potentially live off of it for life, it wouldn't be a particularly well off lifestyle, and many people would continue to work to earn money even with that income.

Improve this answer
11
  • 9
    point 2 - did Harry pay for his stay at the Leaky Cauldron? If the Ministry wanted him there and were willing to do favours for him, might they have paid?
    – NiceOrc
    Mar 1, 2012 at 3:11
  • 7
    For point #3, he gave his Triwizard winnings to Fred and George. No mention of profit sharing or anything like that, but I would imagine that after HP:DH he probably got a cut.
    – JohnP
    Oct 12, 2013 at 0:51
  • 3
    Unrelated, but 1 million USD is more than sufficient to live off for life. Invested properly, it will return $40k/year after inflation (assuming 7% return and 3% inflation annually), which is a lower-middle-class salary in the US. Also, if you're a wizard, your cost of living is much lower; no need for a car, electronic gadgets or other expensive stuff. You can repair your things (clothes, furniture etc) so they last longer. I can't see Harry as a "gentleman of leisure" though :-)
    – Jay
    Dec 12, 2013 at 18:22
  • 2
    @Jayraj Adult humans have enough problems investing their money wisely - you think a 12-year old wizard would be able to pick wise investments in a wizarding world he barely knows?
    – Zibbobz
    Apr 16, 2014 at 13:41
  • 1
    @NiceOrc's comment seems correct. My wife is currently reading POA to our kid and I'm pretty sure that Fudge told Harry that he (Harry) wouldn't have to pay the bill.
    – GreenMatt
    Feb 12, 2015 at 17:41
31

The exact amount is never stated in canon, and it's impossible to estimate without knowing exactly how many Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts Harry owned. But it was a considerable amount:

Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

All Harry's -- it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.

Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag. "The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh."

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - pages 58-59 - US Hardcover Edition

It is estimated Harry had quite a lot of money, which he inherited from James and Lily. I'll see if I can find an estimate of Harry's wealth in Muggle money. Was he extremely rich? Yeah, I'd say he was quite wealthy, but probably not as wealthy as the Malfoys. There is no canon evidence that there were any charitable funds set up on Harry's behalf to receive funds for him. I'd say that would be pure conjecture.

ETA: The Harry Potter Lexicon has the following:

JKR has stated in an interview (Comic Relief 2001) that she estimates the value of one Galleon to be "about five pounds," which works out to around US$9.75 (the exchange rate at the time of the interview was US$7.33). In the introduction to both QA and FB, US$250-million is stated to be the equivelent of 34 million Galleons. That also works out to a value of £5 to the Galleon, at the exchange rate of the time. The price listed on the back of the books, however, is not correct, since US$3.99 would equal less than half a British pound, or 8 sickles and 15 knuts. The book instead incorrectly lists US$3.99 as being equal to 14 sickles and 3 knuts. (Unfortunately, CNN.com uses this incorrect value for their Knuts-to-dollars converter.)

This gives us approximate values as follows:

1 bronze Knut = £0.01 (US about 2 cents)

1 silver Sickle = £0.29 (about US$0.57)

1 Galleon = £5.00 (more or less US$9.75)

These rates vary as the exchange rate fluctuates - see the Wizarding World Currency Converter for the current rate.

There is apparently some kind of foreign wizard money that consists of gold coins the size of hubcaps (seems impractical to me, LOL!). So if we had any way of knowing exactly how many Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts Harry had, we could estimate his net worth. Unfortunately, I can't find a specific number quoted by a reputable source, but admittedly I didn't look super hard. :)

Improve this answer
6
  • 2
    No matter what JKR says, it seems unreasonable to have a Galleon worth £5 - even a very tiny (impractical for daily use) gold coin weighing just 1 gram would be worth £25 as 'scrap metal'; a small gold coin is generally worth about £100.
    – Peteris
    Feb 16, 2014 at 11:54
  • If you haven't found it, it doesn't exist! Likely JKR didn't want to put a whole dollar amount to it on purpose. Harry had enough money to be comfortable and for it to be a stark contrast to his living with the Dursleys; that's all that matters - IMO.
    – Möoz
    Apr 14, 2014 at 2:12
  • How can $3.99 be equivalent to less than half a British pound? That makes no sense to me…
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:09
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Currently, 1 British Pound is equivelant to US$1.50. However, in the answer, we see that 1 BP is $2. As such, $3.99 should really be 1.99 BP. Typo, or math worse than JKR. Take your pick.
    – Dave Johnson
    Nov 6, 2015 at 17:52
  • @Peteris, perhaps she means equivalent in spending power to £5. I.e. could get in the wizarding world something you would spend £5 on in the muggle world.
    – crobar
    Sep 29, 2017 at 11:36
1

The site http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/the-5-richest-hogwarts-graduates/ lists the top five as:

Richest of the Rich (rounded to the nearest galleon)

  1. Bellatrix Lestrange $2.1 billion (421686753 Galleons)
  2. Lucius Malfoy $1.6 billion (321285145 Galleons)
  3. Harry Potter $2.6 million (319995 Galleons)
  4. Gilderoy Lockhart $2 million (243309 Galleons)
  5. Sirius Black $1.6 million (199513 Galleons)
Improve this answer
3
  • 20
    Why should we trust that page? Can it be confirmed by anything in the books?
    – curiousdannii
    Aug 28, 2014 at 4:12
  • 3
    Because it is on the Internet. If it is there, it must be true.
    – Alessandro Sanfilippo
    Apr 5, 2016 at 14:00
  • 2
    Harry never graduated, by the way.
    – Gallifreyan
    Dec 26, 2016 at 17:08
0

It would be hard to really know, but I am sure it was a lot. I think James Potter probably inherited from his parents as well. The Potters are an ancient wizarding family, and they James parents were already old when they had him. Lily and James would have eventually contributed to the money they inherited from their jobs. Although they likely didn't work for too long because they had to go into hiding, but likely they did work for a little bit. So Harry probably had quite a bit when he finally started at Hogwarts. After Sirius died, he inherited all of Sirius's money as well, who got money from his uncle.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.