The Prince of Liechtenstein, who reigns and who actually does the job

Most people assume Liechtenstein has one prince. In practice it has two at the top, and the difference matters. The head of state is Hans-Adam II, who has reigned since 1989. But the man who signs, receives ambassadors and speaks for the country has, since 15 August 2004, been his son, Hereditary Prince Alois, acting as regent. I think it’s a neat arrangement that hardly anyone outside the Alps understands, so let me take it step by step.

Hans-Adam II, the reigning prince

He was born on 14 February 1945 and is the fifteenth reigning prince of the House of Liechtenstein. The princely house likes to stress one detail, and I think it’s telling. He’s the first head of state to have grown up in Liechtenstein itself. He spent his childhood with his four siblings in Vaduz Castle, went to the village school and the Vaduz scouts, and then studied in Vienna, at Zuoz in Switzerland and at the University of St. Gallen, where he took a degree in business and economics.

His father, Franz Joseph II, put him in charge of reorganising the family fortune in 1972 and made him his permanent representative in 1984. He became prince on 13 November 1989, when his father died. Under him Liechtenstein joined the United Nations in 1990 and the European Economic Area in 1995, and the house sums him up as a champion of an independent foreign policy. In 2009 he set out his political views in a book, ‘Der Staat im dritten Jahrtausend’ (The State in the Third Millennium).

Alois, the regent who does the work

This is the bit most guides get muddled. On 15 August 2004 Hans-Adam II made his eldest son his representative under Article 13bis of the constitution, which lets the prince hand his powers to an adult heir to prepare him for the throne. Since then Alois has acted as head of state at home and abroad. His father keeps the title; the diary is the son’s.

British readers may find his CV familiar. Alois, born on 11 June 1968, trained as an officer at Sandhurst, served six months with the Coldstream Guards in Hong Kong and London, read law at Salzburg and worked for an audit firm in London before returning to the family’s affairs. He has been married since 1993 to Sophie, Duchess in Bavaria, and they have four children. The eldest, Joseph Wenzel, was born in 1995.

As for who comes next, the answer lies in the reform the house agreed on 15 August 2026. It switches the succession from male-preference to absolute primogeniture, but only for children born in future to Alois’s children. Anyone already born is unaffected, so after Alois the throne passes to his eldest son. I go into the family side in more detail on the princely house of Liechtenstein.

How much power does the prince really have?

Far more than a British monarch. Under the constitution, sovereignty is shared between prince and people, and no law is valid without his assent. Should six months pass without it, the law is treated as rejected. He can’t be brought before the courts either. The counterweight is that 1,500 citizens can table a motion of no confidence in him or an initiative to abolish the monarchy altogether. The full balance, with the government and parliament, is on the page about Liechtenstein’s political system.

Some powers people credit him with, he doesn’t have. The house points out that the prince doesn’t grant asylum or residence and work permits, which are matters for the government and the immigration office. He can confer noble titles, but only very rarely, and the last time was in 1979. His family’s arms double as the state’s, as I explain in Liechtenstein coat of arms. Neither he nor the next in line may hold a second nationality.

Where he lives and how to see him

The prince and the hereditary couple live in Vaduz Castle, which is why it’s closed to visitors apart from special occasions. One myth worth clearing up concerns the flags. Many people think they fly when the prince is at home, and the house flatly denies it. They go up daily and only come down in a gale.

If you want to see him in person, the date is 15 August. In the morning there’s a state ceremony on the meadow by the castle, and afterwards the family invites everyone there to an aperitif in the garden. In 2026 the speech was given by Alois. The programme, and what changed that year, is on the page for Liechtenstein National Day.

For the rest of the year I’d do something else. Every afternoon at 14:00 the Altes Kino in Vaduz screens ‘Fürstliche Momente’, twenty minutes of film shot inside the castle. It’s as close to the state rooms as you’ll get, and it’s free with the ALL INCLUSIVE Erlebnispass.

My take on the arrangement

What I like about it is how little theatre there is. A father who hands over the work but not the title, a son who spent years training for the job, and a house that publishes on its own website a list of things the prince can’t do. For a nation this size it strikes me as a sensible way to keep continuity without drama. It also clears up something that confuses visitors, because the prince who gave the national day speech on 15 August 2026 was the regent, not the reigning prince.