Exclusive: Harry and Meghan plan move back to Britain
Link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2026/08/19/exclusive-harry-and-meghan-move-back-to-britain/
News of the Duke and Duchess’s potential return raises the prospect that they could reprise their roles as working royals
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to move back to Britain, The Telegraph can reveal.
The family intends to relocate from the US later this month to a private, non-royal residence thought to be outside London.
Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, the couple’s children, are enrolled to start at a British school in September.
There are no current plans for either the Duke or Duchess of Sussex to reprise their official working roles within the Royal family. However, the move raises the prospect that they could do so in the future.
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The King was informed of the move on Sunday. It was not discussed when the Sussexes visited him at Highgrove in July, it is understood. He was said to be naturally pleased for the opportunity to more of his family on a regular basis, both in a private and professional capacity.
However, the King is clear that the Duke and Duchess’s status as non-working royals and private individuals, in keeping with their previously expressed wishes, will remain unchanged.
The Prince and Princess of Wales have also been informed of the move.
The Duke and Duchess have enrolled their children in a British school
The Duke and Duchess’s security arrangements have not been disclosed, but there has been no announcement of any change. Prince Harry has previously made it clear that he would not feel safe bringing his family back to the UK without police protection, something he has been fighting for for several years.
The British state has so far steadfastly refused to provide him with police support.
The couple will retain their homes in Montecito, California, and Portugal, while the Duchess will continue to run her lifestyle brand As Ever – which sources insist is thriving – from their new base.
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Sources suggested that the UK would be their primary home for an extended period, although it had not yet been decided whether to make the move permanent. The locations of the home and school have not been made public for privacy reasons.
The decision comes more than six years after the couple quit royal duties and moved abroad in search of financial independence, agreeing not to use their HRH titles.
In a statement released in 2021, following a 12-month review of their situation, Elizabeth II confirmed that the couple would not “continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service”.
She had made it clear that they could not maintain a “half-in, half-out” approach to royal duties while also pursuing commercial opportunities. The Duke and Duchess responded by saying: “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.”
Prince Harry was stripped of his honorary military titles but has continued to support a handful of charities. The couple believe they have since proved that the “half-in, half-out” model does work.
After moving to the US, the Duke and Duchess made a series of incendiary allegations that shook the Royal family to its core.
They suggested that senior royals were racist by asking questions about the colour of their unborn son’s skin. The Duchess of Sussex also revealed that she had had suicidal thoughts and had struggled with her mental health after joining the Royal family.
The Duke and Duchess’s repeated outspoken remarks have been an issue for the Royal family
She said in a 2019 television interview that British friends had warned her before marrying Prince Harry that the tabloids would destroy her life, and she described the British way of dealing with emotions as “probably really damaging”.
In a 2022 magazine interview, she alleged that she would “never be able to do school pick-up and drop-off” in Britain “without it being a royal photo call”.
While the Duke has started building bridges with his father, his relationship with his brother, Prince William, remains deeply fractured.
The pair are not thought to have spoken for years. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales are said to feel deeply betrayed by the revelations made in the Duke’s memoir, Spare, and in various television interviews.
Rebuilding his relationship with the Prince and Princess of Wales will be one of Harry’s most difficult tasksCredit: Chris Jackson/Getty
However, Prince Harry has long made it clear that he misses the UK and is desperate for his children to experience British life and culture.
The move will also enable him to dedicate further time to his charitable organisations.
Invictus 2027 takes place in Birmingham next July, and the Duke fervently hopes that the King will join him to open the event.
The Invictus games have always been one of Prince Harry’s biggest passions
His relationship with his father has improved in recent months, with the pair chatting regularly on the phone.
When the Duke and Duchess returned to the UK last month, they enjoyed a long-awaited reunion with the King and Queen at Highgrove, the monarch’s Gloucestershire home.
It was a significant moment and marked the first time Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet had seen their grandfather in four years. The meeting was considered a key step on the road to reconciliation.
The Sussexes have already sought to build a base in Europe, buying property in Portugal, at the prestigious Costa Terra resort in Melides, in 2023. The country is popular with US emigrants and offers a so-called golden visa granting EU residency in exchange for an investment of at least €250,000 (£216,000), provided the visa holders stay in the country for seven days a year.
MY OPINION ON THIS -
The Telegraph reporting that Harry and Meghan are looking at spending more time in Britain makes perfect sense when you look at where this is heading.
Their royal relevance is fading while the Waleses' is growing. George, Charlotte and Louis are getting older, becoming more visible and actually growing up inside the country and institution their titles represent.
That creates an even bigger problem for Archie and Lilibet. You can call them Prince and Princess of Sussex in every press release, but eventually people are going to notice that these supposedly British royals are American children being raised almost entirely in California with virtually no public connection to Britain, the monarchy or the wider Royal Family.
If Harry and Meghan want their children's royal identities to mean anything beyond words on a birth certificate and website, the children need some kind of British life. They need relationships there. They need familiarity with the country. They need to actually be seen as the King's grandchildren rather than two American children who happen to hold British titles.
And the clock is ticking. As the Wales children grow up, they naturally become the next generation of the royal story. Archie and Lilibet become increasingly peripheral unless Harry and Meghan reconnect them to it.
That's why I don't think this sudden interest in a British foothold is only about Harry being homesick. The Sussexes spent six years trying to prove they could build relevance independent of the monarchy. They couldn't replicate it.
Now the Wales children are growing into their roles, the royal story is moving forward, and Harry and Meghan know their own children's claim to a meaningful royal identity gets weaker with every year they spend completely outside that world.
