Did the White House display the Australian flag for King Charles' April 2026 visit? No, that's not true: The photo of the American flag and the Australian flag on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) is from 2019. The flag was displayed then for the Australian prime minister's state visit, according to publicly available images from photo agencies. Washington, D.C. displayed 15 Australian flags on lampposts on April 24, 2026, prior to the king's visit. They were being replaced as of the time of publication.
The claim appeared in an April 28, 2026, post on X account @shakeLS (archived here). It opened:
Apparently the US Protocol Office has raised the Australian flag for King Charles state visit hahahaha 😂😂 OMG this is successful a mess of a visit hahaha 😂😂
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @ShakeLS on X.)
A search on Google found a matching image of the two flags displayed at the EEOB in 2019 on the Alamy photo agency website:
(Image source: Google.)
The image caption from the Alamy website (archived here) states it is from 2019:
An American and Australian flag hang from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the grounds of the White House Complex in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019, ahead of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's state visit. President Donald Trump is scheduled to welcome Morrison to the White House Friday, Sept. 20. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
(Image source: Alamy website.)
The District of Columbia inadvertently displayed multiple Australian flags instead of British ones near the White House in preparation for King Charles' visit as The Independent (archived here) and CTV News (archived here) reported.
A Getty Images photo published in The Independent article showing the Australian flag on a lamppost also had the EEOB in the background with only an American flag displayed on the building (red circle added by Lead Stories):
(Image source: The Independent website.)
