Prince Harry won't stay at Buckingham Palace during London visit

Prince Harry will not stay at Buckingham Palace when he visits London this week on a trip he originally planned to make with his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their two children.

Harry is scheduled to attend his first engagement in London on Tuesday for a trip centered around several charities with which he is involved, including the Invictus Games.

It is not known where Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, will stay during his time in London, where he grew up and lived for much of his life.

ABC News understands that an offer to stay at Buckingham Palace in London was made to Harry, but that Harry's team formally declined the offer on Saturday morning.

Later that same day, Harry's team reversed course and accepted the offer, but it was too late for the Royal Household to accept such a request, a royal source told ABC News.

A spokesperson for Harry said in a statement Monday that the withdrawal of accommodation is "disappointing," adding that it is "unclear why, having formally accepted the accommodation offer, it has now been withdrawn at the last moment."

According to Harry's spokesperson, the palace cited as the reason for the withdrawal of accommodation the fact that Harry's first engagement on Tuesday also falls, by chance, on the same day a ruling is expected in a case he and other celebrities, including Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley, brought against the publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.

Buckingham Palace has not commented on Harry's upcoming trip or his accommodations.

In addition to confusion over where he will stay, there has also been uncertainty over who could be joining Harry on his trip to the U.K., amid security concerns.

ABC News learned over the weekend that Harry would travel solo to London, without Meghan and their two children, 5-year-old Lilibet and 7-year-old Archie, due to concerns about appropriate security for the family.

The Sussexes have not yet decided whether Meghan and their children will join Harry in Birmingham, England, where he has engagements scheduled on July 9 and 10, ABC News understands.

The Sussexes had announced as recently as last week that they would travel to the U.K. as a family of four for a five-day visit, from July 7-11.

The visit was to have been the California-based family's first publicly known trip to the U.K. since June 2022, when the family attended Platinum Jubilee celebrations for Harry's grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

In May 2025, Harry lost an appeal challenging the British government's decision to reduce his publicly funded security after he and Meghan stepped back from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to California.

Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately funded security team.

It remains unknown whether Harry or his family, should they join him, will meet with Charles or other members of the royal family during this week's trip.

Archie and Lilibet are not known to have seen their grandfather, Charles, in-person since their 2022 visit to the U.K.