We study the effects of the addition of the charm quark on the QCD equation of state at zero and nonzero chemical potential on lattices with $N_t=6$. Our ensembles are quenched with respect to charm and the charm quark is a valence staggered quark. Along the trajectory of constant physics the ratio $m_s/m_c$ is kept constant after tuning the charm quark mass at a lattice spacing of about 0.09 fm. We find that the charm quark has a significant contribution to the equation of state at zero chemical potential already at temperatures between about $1.2T_c$ and $2T_c$. The additional contribution at nonzero chemical potential vanishes within the current statistical uncertainty.