King Charles and Queen Camilla Announce Autumn Caribbean Tour Ahead of Commonwealth Summit

Buckingham Palace has announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla will undertake an Autumn Tour to Antigua and Barbuda from Tuesday, 27 October to Wednesday, 4 November 2026, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The tour, confirmed by the Palace on 26 August, sends the King and Queen to the Caribbean at the invitation of host nations and at the request of the UK Government. Before the Commonwealth summit itself, King Charles will undertake a Royal Visit to The Bahamas, where he is also Head of State — meaning he remains the formal monarch of the island nation, a constitutional arrangement dating back to independence in 1973. A state visit to Guyana is also on the itinerary, at the invitation of the President of Guyana and at the request of the UK Government, marking 60 years of bilateral relations between the two countries.

The Caribbean leg sits within a broader 2026 programme of royal travel. The King and Queen are scheduled to make a state visit to Washington DC to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, followed by a Royal Visit by the King to Bermuda. Queen Camilla did not join the King on the Bermuda leg of an earlier trip this year, staying behind while the King travelled on alone, as reported in May.

The royal family's connections to the region run deep. In a message marking The Bahamas' 50th anniversary of independence in July 2023, King Charles noted five royal visits to the islands between 1966 and 1994. The Earl and Countess of Wessex visited the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands and The Bahamas in early 2023. In September 2019, then-Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall released a statement to the people of the Bahamas following the devastation of Hurricane Dorian. King Charles also met with the Bahamas' Governor General Cynthia Pratt in 2024.

These tours follow a pattern of royal travel continuing alongside the King's cancer treatment. The King and Queen completed their tour to Canada in May 2025 while the monarch's treatment was ongoing. The palace has not indicated whether the autumn programme will be adjusted on medical grounds.

For context, the Caribbean has been a frequent destination for working royals. Prince William and Kate Middleton travelled to Belize, Jamaica and The Bahamas on a royal tour in March 2022. The coming weeks will confirm the detailed engagements, travel costs and accommodation arrangements, all of which are published in the Sovereign Grant report — the annual accounts that set out public spending on the monarchy, funded from a percentage of Crown Estate profits.

What gives this tour its particular texture is the mix of roles the King holds in the region. In The Bahamas, he arrives as Head of State. In Guyana, he comes at the invitation of a republic that removed the British monarch as head of state in 1970. And at the Commonwealth summit itself, he presides as Head of the Commonwealth — a role that is not hereditary but was entrusted to him by the member states in 2018. Three different relationships, three different protocols, one nine-day tour.