• Body:

Slightly long body of medium weight. The legs are short and strong, the paws are rounded. Males must be more massive than females.

• Head:

A strong boned head with full, somewhat rounded cheeks. The forehead is slightly rounded. The nose is of medium length without stop but with a slight indentation. The chin is firm. The ears are rather small with rounded tips. They are set slightly tipped not too upright on the skull with good width between.

• Eyes:

Deep blue, not quite round and slightly oval.

• Coat:

Long to semi-long according to the actual parts of the body: short on the face, gradually growing longer on the cheeks to a full frill, long on the back and the flanks. The texture is silky and there is little undercoat.

• Color:

The face, the ears, the paws, the genitals and the tail of the Sacred Birman show the same points as e.g. the Siamese but all the feet are white. The white on the feet should be in symmetry. The points should be in a good contrast to the body color. The body color is a very pale eggshell, the back is golden beige in all varieties. A fault are pure white patches on the chest or the belly. Only in adult cats the color of the points and the body color are fully developed.

• Feet:

The special feature of the Sacred Birman Cat is the white feet, called ‘gloves’. These gloves must be absolutely pure white. They should stop at the articulation or at the transition of toes to metacarpals over which they should not extend. Slightly longer white gloves on the hind feet can be tolerated. On the back of the hind feet the white gloves end in points.
The ideal ‘gauntlets’ end in inverted V’s end 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 the feet.

• Tail:

It is medium-length and plume-shaped. It is usually kept upwards and shakes every step the cat takes. The fur is thick and long. The last part of the tail is rounded, unlike the Ragdoll’s, which ends with a point. The tail must be long enough to touch the shoulder.

• Remarks:

This standard describes, as in any other breed, the perfect look. Cats without faults are rare but faults are easy recognized in a Birman. Inequality is very easy to see in the white gloves. When breeding it is very important to select cats with regular white feet without forgetting the other features. The beauty of the Birman is the overall harmony of the cat and this should be kept in mind when judging.

• Faults precluding the Certificate:

White patching in the coloured areas or the reverse. A white patch on the genitals. Creeping up of the white on the sides or the reverse sides of the gloves of front and/or hind feet (known as ‘runners’). Absence of gauntlets on the hind feet.