Queen Mary and King Frederik of Denmark to visit Australia in March 2026
Copenhagen: Mary Donaldson defeated Denmark. Now, in her first visit to Australia since becoming queen, she’s on a mission to win big business for both countries.
Dozens of Danish leaders will join King Frederik and Queen Mary on a state visit to Australia aimed at boosting annual business by $2 billion.
The visit is expected to begin in Uluru to pay respect to Indigenous Australians and will include a strong focus on the environment during visits to Melbourne and Canberra.
It will also take Queen Mary back to Tasmania. Although officials have not confirmed details, the agenda is expected to leave him time to meet family and friends in his hometown during the visit from March 14 to 19.
A state banquet hosted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be held in Canberra and a reception in Melbourne so visitors can host a social event in response.
Underpinning all of this will be the strategic goal of bringing Australia and Denmark closer together on defense and expanding two-way trade worth around $2 billion a year in goods and services.
Denmark is also a key supporter of a free trade agreement between Australia and the European Union, at a time when objections from farmers in France and Ireland could jeopardize the outcome.
In a show of strength by Danish industry, more than 55 business chiefs have signed up to join a delegation from several clean energy companies that will take part during the official state visit.
There will be talk about exporting more Danish wind turbines, an important alternative to China, and investing more Danish money in renewable energy projects such as offshore wind.
Attention will also be paid to Australian exports. The newest will be three electric ferries from Tasmanian shipbuilder Incat to ferry passengers across Denmark’s inland waterways.
The ferries are currently being built at the company’s Hobart shipyard and will be 100 per cent battery electric and capable of carrying 1483 passengers and 500 cars.
Although the ferries will not be completed and supplied until 2027 and 2028, it seems clear who should launch the first ship.
Queen Mary is unlikely to attend corporate events, but state visiting and business delegations will gather at major events, including the state dinner. This is not unfamiliar territory for the queen, given that she has a business history dating back to before she met Frederik at the Slip Inn near Darling Harbor during the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
She has degrees in commerce and law, further qualifications in marketing and was working as an account manager for an advertising firm before we met.
The visit is seen as so important in Denmark that it will go ahead even though it overlaps with the national parliamentary election campaign on March 24. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called for early elections in her statement to parliament on Thursday local time.
But the campaign is likely to have an impact because the Danish government had initially planned to send two of its most senior ministers: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Troels Lund Poulsen and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen. This will be difficult when both are campaigning.
The convention provides for a government minister to accompany a state visit, but the full membership of the delegation has not yet been finalized or announced. Australian Ambassador to Denmark Dave Vosen has been working behind the scenes to add more business chiefs to the list.
Troels Ranis, senior vice president of Danish Industry, who will join the delegation, said that both countries have a common interest in clean energy.
“We are both changing our energy systems,” he said in this imprint in Copenhagen.
“This is a really big, transformative mission, it’s going to happen both in Denmark and in Australia. You are a much bigger country than Denmark, and the mission is also much bigger than in Denmark.”
Frederik and Mary have made three visits to Australia since their marriage in 2004. They took their four children to Bondi Beach, went for a run in Sydney, visited Tasmania for Christmas, demonstrated Danish cooking in Melbourne and flew to Broken Hill to see the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
However, this was due to Frederik’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II. It is their first visit since they became king and queen in January 2024, when Margrethe chose to abdicate after 52 years on the throne.
Margrethe, now 85, lives outside Copenhagen and continues to design sets and costumes for Danish theatre, a job she has done for most of her adult life.
Since the opening two years ago, Frederik and Mary have made official visits to Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
The journey to Australia is a much larger undertaking due to the distance and the business delegation, which is one of the largest of its kind. Children are not expected to join them on this trip.
The family’s connection to Australia was an important reason for the visit’s relatively early timing in the king’s reign, according to an official in Copenhagen who was involved in the preparations.
And this will be their first and last official visit to Australia. Traditionally, heads of state make one state visit to a country. The last Danish state visit to Australia was by Queen Margrethe in 1987.
So this is a rare event. Frederik and Mary prioritized Australia. Their fans will count this as a win.
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David Crowe is the European correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
