Sisi’s Story Is Coming to an End as ‘The Empress’ Season 3 Gets a Release Date
Few European dramas have captured global audiences quite like ‘The Empress’, and fans now know exactly when to say goodbye. The German historical series, known originally as ‘Die Kaiserin’, follows Empress Elisabeth of Austria, played by Devrim Lingnau, opposite Philip Froissant as Emperor Franz Joseph I.
The show was an instant hit when it premiered on Netflix on September 29, 2022. It became the streamer’s second-most-watched series worldwide for 2 weeks and ranked as the seventh most popular non-English series of 2022, with more than 150 million hours streamed, according to Wikipedia.
Netflix renewed the series for a third and final season in January 2025, and fans have been eagerly waiting for news ever since. Earlier this year, the streamer only committed to a late 2026 window during its What Next? showcase in Berlin.
Now the wait is officially over. Netflix has confirmed that the third and final season of ‘The Empress’ will premiere on November 12, 2026, as What’s on Netflix reported on September 25. The announcement arrives almost 2 years after Season 2 launched in November 2024, and Screen Rant noted the final chapter will once again consist of 6 episodes.
The new season picks up after the devastating Sardinian War. According to the official synopsis, Franz returns a traumatized man, burdened by guilt over the thousands of young men lost on the battlefield.
Elisabeth tries to help him, fighting passionately for her marriage while also championing what she believes is right for the empire, but her efforts fall short. Resistance at court and her own declining health eventually push her to leave Vienna and embark on an unexpected adventure. Tellyvisions pointed out that it’s still unclear whether the final season will go all the way to Sisi’s tragic end. Still, the series’ finality certainly makes that possible.
The fairytale era is over, now the battle for the future begins. 👑
— Netflix (@netflix) October 29, 2024
The Empress Season 2 premieres November 22. pic.twitter.com/WwPNIf9x2N
Lingnau and Froissant lead the returning cast alongside Melika Foroutan as Franz’s mother Sophie, Johannes Nussbaum as his brother Maximilian, Josephine Thiesen as Princess Marie Charlotte of Belgium, and Runa Greiner as Countess Charlotte von Stubenberg.
Several new characters join the story this time. Dejan Bućin plays Count Andrássy, Merlin Sandmeyer plays Konstantin von Hohenlohe, Marlene Burow plays Terese, Nico Holonics plays Otto von Bismarck, and Sebastian Blomberg plays Emperor Wilhelm I.
Behind the scenes, Katharina Eyssen returns as showrunner, with creative support from Robert Eyssen, while Florian Cossen and Julia Langhof share directing duties. Filming began on September 8, 2025, at Barrandov Studios in the Czech Republic, according to NetflixJunkie.
The production also traveled somewhere new for the final season. Behind-the-scenes photos showed the cast filming in full costume in Lloret de Mar, north of Barcelona, marking the first time the series headed to Spain’s beaches.
The final season arrives on a wave of impressive viewership. From 2023 through June 2026, Seasons 1 and 2 have racked up 462 million hours watched, equal to more than 82.3 million views, according to data compiled by What’s on Netflix.
Season 2 also spent 5 weeks in Netflix’s global Top 10. With that track record and a definitive ending on the way, the farewell to Elisabeth and Franz is shaping up to be one of the streamer’s biggest international releases of the fall.
Are you excited for The Empress Season 3 to bring Elisabeth and Franz’s story to an end?
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