The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly returned to the U.K. six years after they moved to California.
Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, are said to have landed in the U.K. privately from California, according to British media reports.
A spokesman for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told the BBC, “This is not something we would comment on.”
The return was reported by media outlets including the BBC and Sky News, with the Daily Telegraph reporting their plane landed at Birmingham International Airport around noon.
Birmingham is a major U.K. city in the West Midlands, about 160 kilometres northwest of London.
News of their departure from the U.S. broke last week. The family has not disclosed why they are returning to England. King Charles III was told of the move on Sunday.
While they live in the U.K., the couple will not be working royals or have any official duties. The family will reportedly live at a private property outside London.
FILE: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex make their way along The Mall to Buckingham Palace, in London, after the Trooping the Colour ceremony, as Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her official birthday in June 2019.
Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images
Archie, seven and Lilibet, five, have been enrolled in school and are scheduled to begin in September, the Associated Press reported.
Harry and Meghan plan to maintain their home in Montecito, Calif., and their vacation property in Portugal, the U.S. agency wrote last week.
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The couple gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago, where they secured lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify through their media company, Archewell Productions. Several years later, Harry’s best-selling memoir Spare, published in 2023, deepened a growing chasm among the royals after it aired private details about the family.
Relations with the rest of the Royal Family have soured since then, though Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.
King Charles III, colonel-in-chief of the Grenadier Guards, takes the salute from a dais outside Buckingham Palace during Trooping the Colour on June 13, 2026, in London, England.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Harry told the BBC last year, “I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore.”
“There have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,” he said, adding that he has now “forgiven” them.
Harry and Meghan visited the U.K. last month, where they met with King Charles and Queen Camilla at Highgrove House, a country estate west of London, Buckingham Palace confirmed.
When Charles’ cancer diagnosis was revealed in 2024, Harry expressed a desire to spend time with his father.
“Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has,” he told the BBC last May. “He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile.”
Harry has blamed the palace for stripping him of his police protection detail during visits to the U.K., telling the outlet it was at the “heart” of the family dispute, which he said had made it hard for him to see a future where he would bring his children and wife back to England.
Harry’s visit to England earlier in the summer also coincided with him losing a legal battle in his quest to tame the British tabloids. A judge ruled that he failed to prove his privacy invasion claims against the publisher of the Daily Mail.
— with files from The Associated Press
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