King Charles III carried out official engagements on 175 days over the past 12 months, an increase from 133 the previous year and 161 in the first year of his reign, according to an analysis of the Court Circular by the PA news agency. The tally comes despite a public announcement in Feb. 2024 that the monarch had been diagnosed with a form of cancer and was receiving regular treatment.
The past year saw the King travel farther from the United Kingdom than in any previous year of his reign, including trips to Australia and Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October 2024 and a two-day visit to Canada in May 2025 during which he opened that country's current session of parliament. He also attended events in Poland on Jan. 27, 2025, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and made a four-day visit to Italy in April 2025 that included the first speech to the Italian parliament by a British monarch.
Domestically, the King maintained a busy schedule of engagements across the United Kingdom, visiting locations from Lossiemouth in northern Scotland to Deal on the Kent coast and attending events in Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Durham, Edinburgh and Middlesbrough. One engagement took him to sea to meet the crew of the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales in the English Channel ahead of the ship's deployment to Japan.
Charles reached the milestone of the 1,000th day of his reign during the period covered by the analysis. The 12 months examined were the first full year of the reign not to include a change of prime minister; Sir Keir Starmer succeeded Rishi Sunak on July 5, 2024, with no further change during the year. The King held 22 formal audiences with his prime minister during the past year, the same number as in his second year as monarch and four fewer than the 26 recorded in his first year.
The Court Circular records also show Charles continuing to hold regular one-to-one audiences with leaders of UK charities and businesses, greeting ambassadors and receiving visiting heads of state and government. Visitors to Buckingham Palace included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in June 2025 and French President Emmanuel Macron in July.
Buckingham Palace said the King has continued to undertake engagements and audiences even during months in 2024 when he was largely out of public view while receiving treatment. The analysis noted that Charles’s foreign visits this year followed a pattern of historic firsts for British monarchs in recent years; in 2023 he became the first reigning British monarch to address the French Senate and the German Bundestag.
The PA news agency compiled the figures from the Court Circular, the official record of the royal household's activities. The figures for senior working royals show that the Princess Royal carried out engagements on 189 days in the past year, more than any other senior royal. The Duke of Edinburgh was listed on 129 days, the Duchess of Edinburgh on 117, the Prince of Wales on 107 and the Princess of Wales on 37.
Charles became king on Sept. 8, 2022, following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died peacefully at Balmoral in Scotland at age 96 after a 70-year reign. The recent increase in official engagements under Charles's reign comes amid efforts by Buckingham Palace to balance the monarch's public duties with his ongoing medical treatment.