Who was the British king during the American Revolution?

The British king during the American Revolution was King George III.

George III became king of Great Britain in 1760 and reigned throughout the colonial crisis, the Revolutionary War, and the early years of the new United States. British policies associated with his reign included taxation measures, enforcement of imperial authority, and military efforts to suppress the colonial rebellion. Although Parliament and royal ministers made many policy decisions, American Patriots often treated the king as the symbolic head of the system they opposed.

The Declaration of Independence therefore included a long list of grievances against “the present King of Great Britain,” referring to George III. Thomas Paine's Common Sense also made the monarch a central target in its argument against hereditary rule.

The answer is sometimes confused with George II, who ruled during the earlier French and Indian War, or George IV, who became king only in 1820. William III had reigned much earlier, from 1689 to 1702. George III remained king during the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 and the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which formally ended the war.