There are 43 monarchies in the world in 2026: sovereign countries whose head of state is a king, queen, emperor, sultan, emir, grand duke, prince or pope. Fifteen of them are Commonwealth realms that share one monarch, King Charles III. The other 28 have monarchs of their own, from Japan's emperor and Saudi Arabia's king to the two co-princes of Andorra. Most are constitutional monarchies, where the monarch reigns but elected governments rule. Only a handful, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Brunei, Eswatini and Vatican City, are absolute monarchies.
The 28 Countries With Their Own Monarch
| Country | Monarch (2026) | Type |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | King Charles III | Constitutional |
| Spain | King Felipe VI | Constitutional |
| Netherlands | King Willem-Alexander | Constitutional |
| Belgium | King Philippe | Constitutional |
| Denmark | King Frederik X | Constitutional |
| Norway | King Harald V | Constitutional |
| Sweden | King Carl XVI Gustaf | Constitutional |
| Luxembourg | Grand Duke Guillaume V | Constitutional |
| Liechtenstein | Prince Hans-Adam II | Constitutional, strong prince |
| Monaco | Prince Albert II | Constitutional |
| Andorra | Two co-princes | Constitutional |
| Vatican City | Pope Leo XIV | Absolute, elective |
| Saudi Arabia | King Salman | Absolute |
| Oman | Sultan Haitham bin Tariq | Absolute |
| Qatar | Emir Tamim bin Hamad | Absolute in practice |
| Kuwait | Emir Mishal al-Ahmad | Parliament suspended since 2024 |
| Bahrain | King Hamad bin Isa | Constitutional in name |
| United Arab Emirates | Federation of seven emirs | Federal, elective presidency |
| Jordan | King Abdullah II | Constitutional, strong king |
| Morocco | King Mohammed VI | Constitutional, strong king |
| Eswatini | King Mswati III | Absolute |
| Lesotho | King Letsie III | Constitutional |
| Japan | Emperor Naruhito | Constitutional |
| Thailand | King Vajiralongkorn | Constitutional |
| Cambodia | King Norodom Sihamoni | Constitutional, elective |
| Malaysia | Sultan Ibrahim (Agong) | Constitutional, elective |
| Brunei | Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah | Absolute |
| Bhutan | King Jigme Khesar Namgyel | Constitutional |
| Tonga | King Tupou VI | Constitutional |
The table lists 29 entries because the United Kingdom appears here and also heads the Commonwealth realms below. Counting it once gives 28 separate royal houses plus 14 other realms, 43 in all.
Absolute, Constitutional and Everything Between
In an absolute monarchy, the monarch holds real executive and often legislative power, and there is no elected body that can overrule them. Saudi Arabia has no national legislature chosen by voters. Brunei's sultan is also prime minister, defence minister and finance minister. In Eswatini, political parties cannot run in elections, and King Mswati III appoints the prime minister.
In a constitutional monarchy, the monarch's powers are set by a constitution and exercised on the advice of elected ministers. That covers all of the European kingdoms, where the monarch's role is largely ceremonial. Many countries sit between the two. The kings of Morocco and Jordan appoint governments and control the army and foreign policy while elected parliaments sit. Liechtenstein voted in a 2003 referendum to give its prince the power to veto laws and dismiss governments, the strongest powers of any European monarch. Kuwait had one of the Gulf's most active elected parliaments until Emir Mishal suspended it in May 2024 for up to four years.
Monarchs Who Are Chosen
Not every crown is inherited. The Pope, sovereign of Vatican City, is elected by the College of Cardinals. Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, was chosen in May 2025. Malaysia rotates its king, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, among the hereditary rulers of nine Malay states, each serving a five-year term. Sultan Ibrahim of Johor took the throne in January 2024. Cambodia's Throne Council chooses a king from the royal family's male descendants.
Andorra is the strangest case. Its two co-princes are the Bishop of Urgell in Spain and the President of France, so one of Andorra's heads of state is chosen by French voters, none of whom are Andorran. The arrangement goes back to a 1278 agreement between a bishop and a French count, and Andorra adopted its first written constitution, and joined the UN, only in 1993. The United Arab Emirates works like a federation of monarchies: each of the seven emirates has a hereditary ruler, and the rulers elect the federation's president, in practice always the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Our guide to Vatican City explains how the world's smallest state is governed.
Fifteen Countries, One King
King Charles III is head of state of 15 countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Outside the UK, each is represented by a governor-general who carries out the monarch's formal duties. Legally, each realm has a separate crown, so Charles is King of Canada and King of Australia separately, not as British king ruling abroad.
The realms are a shrinking group. Mauritius became a republic in 1992, and Barbados did so in November 2021 while remaining in the Commonwealth. Several Caribbean realms, Jamaica among them, have said they intend to follow. The Commonwealth itself is a different thing. Most of its 56 members are republics, as our list of Commonwealth countries shows.
What Constitutional Monarchs Actually Do
In the constitutional monarchies, the monarch's formal powers look large on paper: signing laws, appointing the prime minister, opening parliament, dissolving it for elections. In practice they are exercised on ministers' advice, and a monarch who refused would cause a constitutional crisis. There have been a few. In 1975 Australia's governor-general, Sir John Kerr, acting as the Queen's representative, dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam during a budget deadlock, the most dramatic use of royal reserve powers in modern times. In 1990 King Baudouin of Belgium refused on grounds of conscience to sign a law legalising abortion. The government declared him temporarily unable to reign for about 36 hours, passed the law itself and then restored him. When Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg objected to a euthanasia law in 2008, parliament changed the constitution so that laws no longer needed the monarch's approval, only his signature to promulgate them.
Who Inherits the Throne
The rules of succession have changed a great deal in the past half century. Sweden was the first monarchy to adopt absolute primogeniture, in 1980, so that the eldest child inherits regardless of sex. That is why Crown Princess Victoria, not her younger brother, is heir. The Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom followed, the UK through the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, which took effect in 2015.
Others keep older rules. Japan's Imperial Household Law of 1947 allows only men in the male line to inherit, leaving the dynasty with very few eligible heirs. Saudi Arabia passed the throne from brother to brother among the sons of its founder, Ibn Saud. In 2015 King Salman named the first crown prince from the next generation, his nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, and in 2017 replaced him with his own son, Mohammed bin Salman.
Monarchies That Ended, and Two That Came Back
The number of monarchies fell sharply during the twentieth century. The First World War ended the German, Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires. Italy voted out its king in 1946. Egypt's monarchy fell in 1952, Iraq's in 1958 and Libya's in 1969. Greece abolished its monarchy by referendum in 1974. Ethiopia's emperor was deposed the same year, and Iran's shah fell in the 1979 revolution. The most recent to end was Nepal's, abolished in 2008 after its civil war.
Two went the other way. Spain restored its monarchy under Juan Carlos I after Franco's death in 1975, and Cambodia restored its throne in 1993 with Norodom Sihanouk returning as king.
One Extended Family
Europe's royal houses are closely related, the result of centuries of marriages between dynasties. Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark were both nicknamed the "grandparent of Europe" because their children married into so many royal families. Almost every reigning European monarch is descended from one or both of them. King Charles III, King Felipe VI of Spain, King Harald V of Norway, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and King Frederik X of Denmark are all related through these lines. That network was once a tool of diplomacy. By 1914, the British king, the German emperor and the Russian tsar were first cousins, which did not stop them going to war with one another.
Records Among the Royals
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei has reigned since October 1967, making him the world's longest-reigning current monarch since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, after 70 years on the throne. Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej also reigned for 70 years, from 1946 until his death in 2016. Japan's imperial house claims the longest unbroken line of any monarchy, traditionally dated to 660 BC. Historians place its reliable record from around the sixth century AD, which still makes it the oldest continuing hereditary monarchy. Naruhito is also the world's only reigning emperor, and he succeeded in 2019 when his father, Akihito, abdicated. It was the first abdication of a Japanese emperor in about two hundred years. At the other end, the youngest dynasties include Saudi Arabia's, whose kingdom was proclaimed in 1932, and Bhutan's, founded in 1907, which moved from absolute to constitutional monarchy in 2008 at the king's own initiative.