Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Are Moving Back to Britain, Six Years After Walking Away

Verified key facts

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are moving back to the UK with their children after six years in California, The Washington Post reported
• The transition is set to begin in the coming weeks, according to Variety
• Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, are already enrolled in school in Britain for September, per TMZ
• The couple are keeping their Montecito home and their holiday property in Portugal, The Hollywood Reporter said
• Prince Harry was recently in London to testify at the High Court in his case against the publisher of the Daily Mail, per The Washington Post

The decision nobody in Montecito saw coming

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are moving their family back to the United Kingdom, ending six years of American life that began with the most dramatic royal rupture in a generation. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will return to Britain with their two children, with Variety describing the transition as set to begin in the coming weeks.

The decision lands as a genuine shock. Since stepping back from royal duties in early 2020 and settling in Montecito, California, the couple had built what appeared to be a permanent American establishment: media production deals, Meghan's lifestyle ventures, and a philanthropic foundation all rooted on the West Coast. The Hollywood Reporter called the move a reversal few royal watchers had predicted even months ago.

The children's schooling set the timetable

The clearest signal that this is a settled plan rather than a trial balloon is the school calendar. Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, are already enrolled in school in Britain and will start in September, according to TMZ. That enrolment effectively fixes the family's moving date, since the children would need to be resident before the autumn term begins.

Educating the children in Britain has reportedly been a live question in the household for some time. Archie was born in London before the family's departure, while Lilibet was born in Santa Barbara and has spent her whole life in California; for both children, day-to-day life in Britain will be substantially new territory.

Keeping a foothold on both sides of the Atlantic

The move is not a liquidation of the couple's American life. The Sussexes are keeping their home in Montecito, the nine-bedroom estate they bought in 2020, as well as their holiday property in Portugal, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Retaining the California house preserves both a base for their US commercial commitments and an escape hatch should the return to Britain prove unhappy.

Just Jared reported that the arrangements have been discussed with the wider royal family, including how King Charles views the return. The King's relationship with his younger son has been strained for years, but the prospect of his grandchildren living in Britain is understood to have been welcomed.

A return shadowed by the courtroom

The announcement comes with Prince Harry freshly returned from a very different kind of British engagement. He was recently in London at the High Court to testify in his long-running case against the publisher of the Daily Mail, according to The Washington Post, part of the campaign of litigation against the British tabloid press that he has pursued for years.

That campaign has always sat awkwardly with the family's exile. Harry has repeatedly said that press intrusion drove the couple out of Britain, and his security arrangements in the UK were the subject of a separate legal fight he lost in 2024. Returning to live in the country whose media he is still suing is, by any measure, a remarkable turn.

What six years in America built, and what it cost

The American chapter produced a Netflix documentary series, Harry's record-breaking memoir Spare, Meghan's As Ever brand and her Netflix lifestyle series, and the Archewell foundation. It also produced a sustained estrangement from the royal family, with relations between the brothers reduced, by most accounts, to near silence.

Variety noted that the couple's commercial momentum in Hollywood had cooled from its 2021 peak, with several projects concluded or renegotiated. Whether the return to Britain signals a winding down of the celebrity-media phase of their lives, or simply a change of headquarters, is the question their next announcements will answer.

How the family and the country might receive them

Public opinion in Britain has been consistently cooler towards the Sussexes than in the United States, and the tabloid press they battled has not softened. Yet the presence of Archie and Lilibet, who are fifth and sixth in line to the throne, changes the family arithmetic: King Charles gains regular access to two grandchildren he has rarely seen, and the children gain a relationship with their cousins.

TMZ reported that the couple view the move as being about family and stability rather than any resumption of royal duties. There is no suggestion that the Sussexes will return to working-royal status, which the late Queen ruled out definitively in 2020.

The long road from Megxit to the move home

The return closes a circle that began in January 2020, when the couple announced they would step back as senior royals, an episode the British press instantly branded Megxit. The following months brought the loss of their royal patronages and Harry's honorary military titles, a move to Canada and then California, and the Oprah Winfrey interview of March 2021, in which the couple levelled accusations at the institution that made reconciliation appear remote.

In the years since, the relationship thawed only at the margins: Harry returned alone for the late Queen's funeral in 2022 and his father's coronation in 2023, and visited the King briefly after his cancer diagnosis in 2024. Against that history, the decision to base the family in Britain again is the most substantial gesture of reconciliation either side has offered in six years.

September, a school run, and a family watching

The concrete milestone now is the start of the autumn school term, when Archie and Lilibet walk into British classrooms and the family's return becomes a lived fact rather than a report. Between now and then come the practicalities: where precisely the family will live, what security they will have, and which engagements, if any, will mark their re-arrival.

Six years ago the couple's departure was announced in an Instagram post that blindsided Buckingham Palace. Their return, by contrast, appears to have been carefully choreographed with the family they left. That difference may say more about where this story goes next than any statement either side has made.

Sources

• The Washington Post - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will return to U.K. after six years in U.S.
• Variety - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Moving Back to U.K. in Shock Decision
• The Hollywood Reporter - Prince Harry, Meghan Markle to Move Back to the U.K.
• TMZ - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Moving Family Back to the UK In Shocking Twist
• Just Jared - Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Moving Back to UK with Their Kids