List of heads of state of Myanmar since 1948

Top left: Sao Shwe Thaik was the first president of the Union of Burma.
Top right: Ne Win was the longest-serving head of state who turned the Union into military dictatorship.
Bottom left: Thein Sein was considered as a reformist leader in the post-junta government.
Botton right: Min Aung Hlaing is the current president.

This article lists the presidents and de facto heads of state of Myanmar (Burma) since the Burmese Declaration of Independence in 1948. During the periods of direct military rule in 1962–1974 and 1988–2011, the office of president was abolished and chairman of military junta served as head of state.

Titles

Period	Position
1948–1952	Provisional President (နိုင်ငံတော်ယာယီသမ္မတ)
1952–1962; 1974–1988; 2011–2021; 2026–present	President (နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ)
1962–1974	Chairman of the State Revolutionary Council (နိုင်ငံတော်တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီဥက္ကဋ္ဌ) Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma (ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီဥက္ကဋ္ဌ)
1974–1988	Chairman of the Council of State, President of the Republic (နိုင်ငံတော်ကောင်စီဥက္ကဋ္ဌ၊ နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ)
1988–1997	Chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (နိုင်ငံတော်ငြိမ်ဝပ်ပိပြားမှုတည်ဆောက်ရေးအဖွဲ့ဥက္ကဋ္ဌ)
1997–2011	Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (နိုင်ငံတော်အေးချမ်းသာယာရေးနှင့်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးကောင်စီဥက္ကဋ္ဌ)
2021–2026	Pro Tem President (ယာယီသမ္မတ)
1988; 2018; 2026	Acting President (ယာယီသမ္မတ)

List of officeholders

Political parties

Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL)

Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP)

Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)

National League for Democracy (NLD)

Other affiliations

Military

Status

Acting president or de facto head of state

(Dates in italics indicate de facto continuation of office)

No.	Portrait	Name (Lifespan)	Term of office			Election	Political party		Ref.
No.	Portrait	Name (Lifespan)	Start	End	Duration	Election	Political party		Ref.

1		Sao Shwe Thaik စဝ်ရွှေသိုက် (1895–1962)	4 January 1948^[a]^[3]	16 March 1952	4 years, 72 days	1947		Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
2		Ba U ဘဦး (1887–1963)	16 March 1952	13 March 1957	4 years, 362 days	1952		Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League
3		Win Maung ဝင်းမောင် (1916–1989)	13 March 1957	2 March 1962 (Deposed in a coup)	4 years, 354 days	1957		Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (Union Karen League)
—		Ne Win နေဝင်း (1911–2002)	2 March 1962	2 March 1974	12 years	Junta		Military / Burma Socialist Programme Party
Position vacant; power was handed to Pyithu Hluttaw (2 – 4 March 1974)

4		Ne Win နေဝင်း (1911–2002)	4 March 1974	9 November 1981^[b]	7 years, 250 days	1974 1978		Burma Socialist Programme Party
5		San Yu စန်းယု (1918–1996)	9 November 1981	27 July 1988 (Resigned)	6 years, 261 days	1981 1985		Burma Socialist Programme Party	^[4]
6		Sein Lwin စိန်လွင် (1924–2004)	27 July 1988	12 August 1988 (Resigned)	16 days	—		Burma Socialist Programme Party	^[5]
—		Aye Ko အေးကို (1921–2006)	12 August 1988	19 August 1988	7 days	—		Burma Socialist Programme Party	^[6]
7		Maung Maung မောင်မောင် (1925–1994)	19 August 1988	18 September 1988 (Deposed in a coup)	30 days	—		Burma Socialist Programme Party	^[7]

—		Saw Maung စောမောင် (1928–1997)	18 September 1988	23 April 1992 (Deposed)^[c]	3 years, 218 days	Junta		Military	^[8]^[9]^[10]
—		Than Shwe သန်းရွှေ (born 1933)	23 April 1992	30 March 2011^[d]	18 years, 341 days	Junta		Military / Union Solidarity and Development Association

8		Thein Sein သိန်းစိန် (born 1945)	30 March 2011	30 March 2016	5 years	2011		Union Solidarity and Development Party	^[11]
9		Htin Kyaw ထင်ကျော် (born 1946)	30 March 2016	21 March 2018 (Resigned)	1 year, 356 days	2016		National League for Democracy	^[12]
—		Myint Swe မြင့်ဆွေ (1951–2025)	21 March 2018	30 March 2018	9 days	—		Union Solidarity and Development Party
10		Win Myint ဝင်းမြင့် (born 1951)	30 March 2018	1 February 2021 (Deposed in a coup)	2 years, 308 days	2018		National League for Democracy	^[13]
—		Myint Swe မြင့်ဆွေ (1951–2025)	1 February 2021^[e]	7 August 2025^[f] (Died in office)	4 years, 187 days	—		Union Solidarity and Development Party	^[16]^[17]
—		Min Aung Hlaing မင်းအောင်လှိုင် (born 1956)	7 August 2025^[g]	10 April 2026^[h]	246 days	—		Military
11		Min Aung Hlaing မင်းအောင်လှိုင် (born 1956)	10 April 2026	Incumbent	142 days	2026		Independent^[i]

Timeline

Notes

↑ Titled "Provisional President"^[1] according to the Article 231 of the 1947 Constitution,^[2] as he was elected by the pre-independence Constituent Assembly and not by the post-independence Union Parliament. Although the Burmese word for "provisional president", "acting president" and "pro tem president" is the same, he is included in the official list of presidents, unlike acting and pro tem ones, as the first holder.
↑ Voluntarily stepped down after the 1981 general election.
↑ Resigned for health reasons, de facto deposed by rival generals.
↑ Handed over power to the civilian government after the 2010 general election.
↑ Titled "Pro Tem (President)" in the English version of Ordinance 1/2021; later called "Pro Tem President" by state-own English media outlets.
↑ Myint Swe took medical leave on 18 June 2024, and temporarily transferred NDSC-related presidential duties to Min Aung Hlaing (the chairman of the State Administration Council) on 22 July 2024, for the duration of the medical leave, with Myint Swe remaining in office. Myint Swe died in office on 7 August 2025.^[14]^[15]
↑ Myint Swe died in office as Acting President, as reported by state media and independently verified by outlets including The New York Times.^[18] Up to that point, Min Aung Hlaing was using the title Pro Tem President (On Duty) when signing legislation by the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), based on Myint Swe's delegation of authority starting with his medical leave on 22 July 2024.^[19]^[20] When the NDSC met for the first time after Myint Swe's death, in February 2026, Min Aung Hlaing signed NDSC legislation as Acting President.^[21]
↑ Despite having retired from the office of Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, he still used the military rank of Senior General and the title of Acting President until hours before his inauguration as president on 10 April 2026.^[22]
↑ Close to the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

References

↑ Sao Shwe Thaik (4 January 1952), ၁၉၅၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုင်ငံတော်သမတ(လစာနှင့်စရိတ်ငွေများ) (ပြင်ဆင်ချက်) အက်ဥပဒေ။ [The President (Salaries and Allowances) (Amendment) Act, 1951.]
↑ ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ဖွဲ့စည်းအုပ်ချုပ်ပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ [THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNION OF BURMA] (in Burmese). Constituent Assembly of Burma. 24 September 1947. [English translation:https://www.mlis.gov.mm/mLsView.do?lawordSn=8315]
↑ Sao Shwe Thaik (4 January 1948), နိုင်ငံတော်ယာယီသမတ၏ရာထူးသိမ်းပိုက်ကြောင်းကျေညာချက်။ [Declaration of the Assumption of office of the Provisional President of the State.]
↑ "AROUND THE WORLD; Ex-General Takes Office As President of Burma". The New York Times. 10 November 1981.
↑ "BURMA'S NEW CHIEF CHOSEN PRESIDENT". The New York Times. 28 July 1988.
↑ Seth Mydans (13 August 1988). "BURMA'S NEW CHIEF QUITS AS PRESIDENT AND PARTY LEADER". The New York Times.
↑ "Burmese Military Officially Takes Reins Of Power". The New York Times. 19 September 1988.
↑ "Burmese Military Ousts Chief, Citing Illness". The New York Times. 24 April 1992.
↑ "Saw Maung Is Dead at 68; Led a Brutal Burmese Coup". The New York Times. 27 July 1997. Archived from the original on 5 June 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
↑ Wheeler, Ned (28 July 1997). "Obituary: General Saw Maung". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
↑ "President sworn in, junta dissolved- DVB Multimedia Group". Dvb.no. 30 March 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
↑ "Myanmar Lawmakers Name Htin Kyaw President, Affirming Civilian Rule". The New York Times. 16 March 2016. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
↑ "Myanmar elects Win Myint as new president". Deutsche Welle. 28 March 2018. Archived from the original on 31 March 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
↑ "Pro Tem Presidential duties transferred to State Administration Council Chairman" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Vol. XI, no. 98. 23 July 2024. p. 1. Retrieved 7 December 2025.
↑ Wee, Sui-Lee (11 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2025.
↑ "Pro Tem President U Myint Swe's Health Worsens, Admitted to ICU". Yangon Media Group. 5 August 2025. Retrieved 26 August 2025.
↑ Wee, Sui-Lee (7 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 August 2025.
↑ Wee, Sui-Lee (11 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2025.
↑ "Pro Tem Presidential duties transferred to State Administration Council Chairman" (PDF). Vol. XI, no. 98. Global New Light of Myanmar. 23 July 2024. p. 1. Retrieved 7 December 2025.
↑ Min Aung Hlaing (31 July 2025). "National Defence and Security Council Order 1/2025" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Retrieved 21 March 2026.
↑ Min Aung Hlaing (3 February 2026). "National Defence and Security Council Law 3/2026" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Retrieved 21 March 2026.
↑ "ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၂၇ အရ ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့သည့် နိုင်ငံတော်လုံခြုံရေးနှင့် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေးကော်မရှင်အပါအဝင် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများကို ဖျ-က်သိမ်း" [Organizations formed in accordance with the Article 427 of the Constitution, including the State Security and Peace Commission, have been dissolved]. Popular News Journal. 10 April 2026. Retrieved 13 May 2026.

External links

[3] Titled "Provisional President"^[1] according to the Article 231 of the 1947 Constitution,^[2] as he was elected by the pre-independence Constituent Assembly and not by the post-independence Union Parliament. Although the Burmese word for "provisional president", "acting president" and "pro tem president" is the same, he is included in the official list of presidents, unlike acting and pro tem ones, as the first holder.

[5] Voluntarily stepped down after the 1981 general election.

[10] Resigned for health reasons, de facto deposed by rival generals.

[14] Handed over power to the civilian government after the 2010 general election.

[18] Titled "Pro Tem (President)" in the English version of Ordinance 1/2021; later called "Pro Tem President" by state-own English media outlets.

[21] Myint Swe took medical leave on 18 June 2024, and temporarily transferred NDSC-related presidential duties to Min Aung Hlaing (the chairman of the State Administration Council) on 22 July 2024, for the duration of the medical leave, with Myint Swe remaining in office. Myint Swe died in office on 7 August 2025.^[14]^[15]

[28] Myint Swe died in office as Acting President, as reported by state media and independently verified by outlets including The New York Times.^[18] Up to that point, Min Aung Hlaing was using the title Pro Tem President (On Duty) when signing legislation by the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), based on Myint Swe's delegation of authority starting with his medical leave on 22 July 2024.^[19]^[20] When the NDSC met for the first time after Myint Swe's death, in February 2026, Min Aung Hlaing signed NDSC legislation as Acting President.^[21]

[30] Despite having retired from the office of Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, he still used the military rank of Senior General and the title of Acting President until hours before his inauguration as president on 10 April 2026.^[22]

[31] Close to the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

[1] Sao Shwe Thaik (4 January 1952), ၁၉၅၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုင်ငံတော်သမတ(လစာနှင့်စရိတ်ငွေများ) (ပြင်ဆင်ချက်) အက်ဥပဒေ။ [The President (Salaries and Allowances) (Amendment) Act, 1951.]

[2] ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ဖွဲ့စည်းအုပ်ချုပ်ပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ [THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNION OF BURMA] (in Burmese). Constituent Assembly of Burma. 24 September 1947. [English translation:https://www.mlis.gov.mm/mLsView.do?lawordSn=8315]

[4] Sao Shwe Thaik (4 January 1948), နိုင်ငံတော်ယာယီသမတ၏ရာထူးသိမ်းပိုက်ကြောင်းကျေညာချက်။ [Declaration of the Assumption of office of the Provisional President of the State.]

[6] "AROUND THE WORLD; Ex-General Takes Office As President of Burma". The New York Times. 10 November 1981.

[7] "BURMA'S NEW CHIEF CHOSEN PRESIDENT". The New York Times. 28 July 1988.

[8] Seth Mydans (13 August 1988). "BURMA'S NEW CHIEF QUITS AS PRESIDENT AND PARTY LEADER". The New York Times.

[9] "Burmese Military Officially Takes Reins Of Power". The New York Times. 19 September 1988.

[11] "Burmese Military Ousts Chief, Citing Illness". The New York Times. 24 April 1992.

[12] "Saw Maung Is Dead at 68; Led a Brutal Burmese Coup". The New York Times. 27 July 1997. Archived from the original on 5 June 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2020.

[13] Wheeler, Ned (28 July 1997). "Obituary: General Saw Maung". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 2 January 2020.

[15] "President sworn in, junta dissolved- DVB Multimedia Group". Dvb.no. 30 March 2011. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2015.

[16] "Myanmar Lawmakers Name Htin Kyaw President, Affirming Civilian Rule". The New York Times. 16 March 2016. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023. Retrieved 21 April 2025.

[17] "Myanmar elects Win Myint as new president". Deutsche Welle. 28 March 2018. Archived from the original on 31 March 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2018.

[19] "Pro Tem Presidential duties transferred to State Administration Council Chairman" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Vol. XI, no. 98. 23 July 2024. p. 1. Retrieved 7 December 2025.

[NYT_Myint_Swe-20] Wee, Sui-Lee (11 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2025.

[22] "Pro Tem President U Myint Swe's Health Worsens, Admitted to ICU". Yangon Media Group. 5 August 2025. Retrieved 26 August 2025.

[23] Wee, Sui-Lee (7 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 August 2025.

[24] Wee, Sui-Lee (11 August 2025). "U Myint Swe, 74, Acting President of Myanmar Installed by Military, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2025.

[25] "Pro Tem Presidential duties transferred to State Administration Council Chairman" (PDF). Vol. XI, no. 98. Global New Light of Myanmar. 23 July 2024. p. 1. Retrieved 7 December 2025.

[26] Min Aung Hlaing (31 July 2025). "National Defence and Security Council Order 1/2025" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Retrieved 21 March 2026.

[27] Min Aung Hlaing (3 February 2026). "National Defence and Security Council Law 3/2026" (PDF). Global New Light of Myanmar. Retrieved 21 March 2026.

[29] "ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၂၇ အရ ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့သည့် နိုင်ငံတော်လုံခြုံရေးနှင့် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေးကော်မရှင်အပါအဝင် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများကို ဖျ-က်သိမ်း" [Organizations formed in accordance with the Article 427 of the Constitution, including the State Security and Peace Commission, have been dissolved]. Popular News Journal. 10 April 2026. Retrieved 13 May 2026.

[a]

[3]

[b]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[c]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[d]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[e]

[f]

[16]

[17]

[g]

[h]

[i]

[1]

[2]

[14]

[15]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

Heads of state of Myanmar / Burma since 1948
Union of Burma (1948–1962)	Sao Shwe Thaik Ba U Win Maung
Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1962–1988)	Ne Win† San Yu† Sein Lwin† Aye Ko* Maung Maung
Union of Burma / Myanmar (1988–2011)	Saw Maung† Than Shwe†
Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2011–present)	Thein Sein Htin Kyaw Myint Swe* Win Myint Myint Swe* Min Aung Hlaing
† indicate military officeholders * indicate acting officeholders.

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