The head of the Birman is in the shape of the isosceles triangle with slightly rounded angles. It should be slightly longer than wider - the perfect proportion is 5:4. The head has a rather robust bone structure and full cheeks. The muzzle is heart-shaped, with prominent cheekbones and soft features. The eyes are far from each other and well proportioned on the muzzle. The forehead is slightly rounded, the nose is medium-length. It has a slight stop - a depression of the nose channel in the eye area. The tip of the nose is downward and must be aligned to the chin by an ideal vertical line. The ears are long and wide at their root. They are medium-sized, placed slightly oblique and forward, not too much on the top of the skull but well-distanced instead. The tips are rounded. They eyes' expression is strong. The eyes are almost round, wide open and intensively blue. "The oriental look" or the squint are faults. The fluffy tail should not be too long. It must be long enough to touch the shoulder. The coat is long or semi-long, it is longer on the belly and breast.

The coat neither protrudes nor adheres to the body. Each Birman has darker fur on its neck and near genitals. Characteristics which must be kept in definite proportion: the characteristic colourpoints on head, ears, paws and tail must be in the same colour and they cannot have any stains or shades. The fur and the muzzle must be in the same colour as the characteristic colourpoints. The special features on the paws are called "gloves". They must be symmetrically located on paws - on both the front and hind feet - they must be pure white. White colour should end in the articulation or at the transition of toes to metacarpals, over which they should not extend. The ideal "gauntlets" end in inverted "V" and extend 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up the hock lower or higher gauntlets are acceptable but should not go beyond the hock. It is important that the gloves are equally long and show a symmetry of white, on either the two front or two hind feet, or even better, on all four feet. The faults of stains on white parts of fur, asymmetrically located white colour or white parts on backs of paws prevent from gaining high remarks on the exhibition. However, cats with these faults are not excluded from the breed. The Sacred cat of Burma is a colour point cat. The points are: muzzle, ears, legs, tail, genitals. The rest of the body is of the same tone as points, but in a washed-out, almost white version. The lighter the fur is, the better it is. It is worth mentioning that cats with blue, lilac and chocolate colour points have definitely lighter fur.