Stamps, Notes & Fees

by Hla Min

Updated : June 2025

Stamps

• For Postal Service
• For Legal Documents
• For commemorating Events

Sample Stamps

Notes

• After Independence, Burma transitioned from the use of Rupee to Kyat.
• Before inflation, small value notes — K1, K5 & K10 — were used in daily transactions (e.g shopping).
• After hyper-inflation, large value notes — K5000, K10000 — are needed in daily transactions.
• A hospital bill or even a restaurant bill may show several Lakhs .

Fees

• During our student days and even in our early working days, we had to sign and affix a fifteen-pya stamp to a receipt.
• Some legal documents need stamps of Two Kyats (or more).

School Feed

• School fees was 15 Kyats or less per month.
• At RIT, we had to pay 30 Kyats every two months. Since I received Collegiate Scholarship of 75 Kyats per month, I had 60 Kyats pocket money every month.
• That changed slightly, when we we asked to buy “Thuda Padetha Magazine” for 5 Kyats.Still, it was good enough.

Cost of Lunch

• We would collectively order food. Without voracious eaters, each person would pay about one kyat.
• Lime juice costs 15 – 20 pyas.
• Butheegyaw 5 – 10 pyas.
• Banana one for 15 pyas; two for 25 pyas.

A Decade Ago

• My elder sister took me on a pilgrimage trip to Upper Burma.
• There were different kinds of fees : bridge tolls, fees to enter a town.
• The price depends upon the type of car. In one instance, the fee was K400. We gave a K500 note and got back a “tha-gya-lone” (သကြားလုံး candy supposedly worth K100).

Decline of Purchasing Power

• I received 15 to 50 kyats for my writings — poem, article, translation
• How things have changed.
• Sad to note the declining worth of money and disappearance of Bogyoke Aung San’s picture (during the Adhamma Era) and signatures of Maung Kaung & San Lin to guarantee the notes.

Exchange rates

• When we were young, 1 US$ was exchanged at 5 – 6 kyats. We bought books (text books & magazines) at the rate of 6 Kyats.
• In the late 80s, one $ was exchanged at 50+ kyats.
• The exchange rate ballooned to several thousand kyats.