Prince William and Kate could soon be heading Down Under with their three children, for the first time in more than ten years.
It follows an invitation from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his 90-minute sit-down meeting with King Charles at Balmoral Castle on the weekend.
Albanese was ‘hopeful’ and said that there was a ‘standing invitation’ for the Prince William and Princes Kate to visit Australia in the ‘coming period’.
‘I’m certainly hoping there will be one, there’s a standing invitation that the royal family are always welcome in Australia,’ he told News Corp.
‘It was wonderful to welcome King Charles and Queen Camilla to Australia recently, that had a very successful visit and His Majesty is very engaged and I hope that the Prince and Princess of
Wales are able to visit as well and we are hopeful that might occur in the coming period.’
It’s understood the royal visit will most likely happen in July or August 2026 to align with the UK summer school holidays, according to Sunrise royal editor Rob Jobson.
‘The period, I think, is probably going to be the summer of the UK when the kids are not in school,’ he told the program on Monday.
‘I can’t see William and Kate going down to Australia and leaving the kids behind.’
‘Kate hasn’t really done a foreign trip of any significance since 2022. So this is a major trip for her.’
Prince William and Princess Kate last visited Australia in 2014 with their eldest son George, now 12, who was a baby at the time.
The three-week tour included official visits to Sydney, Uluru, and Canberra.
Their younger children Charlotte, 10, and Louis, 7, have never visited Australia.
There were plans for the royals to tour Australia in 2020 to visit communities devastated by the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires in 2019-2020.
However those plans were derailed by the Covid pandemic.
Prince William previously visited Australia in January 2010 and again 14 months later in March 2011 to meet with flood victims in Queensland and Victoria.
His first visit was as a nine-month-old when his parents Prince Charles and Princess Diana toured Australia in 1983.
News of the royals’ possible visit comes after Albanese met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, gifting him with a four-pack of ‘Albo’s Pale Ale’.
Albanese held four cans of the beer brewed by Willie the Boatman in Sydney’s inner west as the couple arrived for the dinner in London.
A photo of a much younger Albanese is pictured on the brew’s logo.
‘We’re polite guests,’ he told photographers.
Albanese’s fiancée Jodie Haydon wore a blue pantsuit for the dinner, which will be hosted by Starmer and his wife Diana and also attended by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.