A Certificate of Identity (CI) is the Myanmar travel paper a worker in Thailand uses in place of a passport to hold a work permit. Myanmar's government opened five CI centres in Thailand on 14 October 2026, running to 14 January 2027: Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan, Surat Thani and Chiang Mai, with a mobile unit in Chonburi. An applicant now shows proof of one year of Myanmar income tax (the 2% levy on earnings abroad) and three months of remittances through official channels, the Labour Ministry's rule that 25% of pay goes home through licensed banks and transfer firms. Burma News International puts the remittance at 2,000 baht a month, 6,000 over three months, the tax at about 1,800 baht a year, and the CI fee at 2,660 baht, paid at 7-Eleven.
On 18 October workers started an online campaign asking Thailand for permits without the CI. The Irrawaddy reported on 27 October that the Samut Sakhon centre, which took over 1,000 applications a day, had gone quiet; the Aid Alliance Committee counts at least 500,000 workers due to apply. Labour Minister Maung Myint said on 20 October that about 1,500 workers had used the centres in the first days. Agents and activists told the paper a CI without remittance evidence costs 1,500 baht in bribes. On the rate: official channels pay 125 kyat per baht, the informal market over 130, so a worker gives up at least 5,000 kyat on every 100 baht sent the official way.
Naypyitaw is pressing from its side. At an inter-ministerial meeting on 30 October the minister put routing overseas earnings through the Central Bank of Myanmar and licensed firms first, and the central bank is reading the records of True Money, 2C2P, K-Bank and Dee Money (Eleven Media, 1 November). From 1 November a worker going back abroad applies in Yangon with proof of the 2% tax and remittance records for the three months before the return, through central-bank authorised banks or holders of a Remittance Business License. Remittances were US$5.6 billion in 2025, and the ministry's goal is the same figure for 2026.
Bangkok is hearing the other side. On 2 November the White Employers group told a parliamentary security committee that the levy comes to about 6,000 baht a worker, paid through TrueMoney and again at 7-Eleven, that passport-related fees rose from 310 baht to 710 and then 2,670, and that brokers ask 1,350 to 1,500 baht for a queue place already booked; employers advance the money for workers who cannot. Nation Thailand gives about 700,000 workers needing a CI and over a million passports near expiry. The People's Party called the 2% tax inconsistent with the 2002 Thailand–Myanmar double taxation agreement and asked for CI centres under Thai supervision.
The Financial Action Task Force, the body that sets anti-money-laundering standards, kept Myanmar on its call-for-action list on 30 October and will consider countermeasures if there is no progress by February 2027; Myanmar's delegation says 13 of the 15 items on its action plan are done. The statement asks countries to keep remittances "neither disrupted nor discouraged" and says it will watch whether Myanmar's own checks "apply undue scrutiny to legitimate financial flows".
Speed: days
A sudden drop, measured in days: the condition arrived on 14 October and a centre that took 1,000 applications a day had gone quiet by the 27th. Each condition the regime adds moves part of the flow to hundi agents (money carried person to person outside banks) and to bribes; the 1,500-baht side door reported this month is the price of the new one. The guess, resting on the 125-against-130 rate gap, the fee ladder and the boycott: official remittances miss the $5.6 billion goal for 2026, and more money moves through people and through USDT, where Thailand's own rules are narrowing the doors from the other side. The one thing that would turn the shape is Bangkok, not Naypyitaw: a permit without a CI, or CI centres under Thai supervision, both now asked for in Parliament.