New issues -
🇲🇲 Myanmar Post -
26 February 2026 - Myanmar Tea - 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Myanmar Post from photographs by Thiha Lwin and lithographed by Wafi Security Printing Works, Myanmar and perforated 14. Rating:- *****.
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -
21 February 2026 - Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day - 1 stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- ***.
Commonwealth countries not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2026 up until the end of February -
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia Cocos (Keeling) Island
Australia Norfolk Island
Australian Antarctic Territory
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Bermuda
Botswana
British Antarctic Territory
British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
Cameroon
Cayman Islands
Cook Islands including Rarotonga
Cook Islands Aitutaki
Cook Islands Penrhyn,
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Dominica
Gabon
Ghana
Gibraltar
Grenada
Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique
Guernsey Sark
Guyana
Jamaica
Kenya
Kingdom of eSwatini
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Maldives
Montserrat
Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
Nevis
New Zealand Ross Dependency
Nigeria
Niue
Papua New Guinea
Pitcairn Islands
Rwanda
St Helena
St Kitts/St Kitts Nevis
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Solomon Islands
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
The Gambia
Togo
Tokelau
Tonga
Tonga Niuafo’ou
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Uganda
United Republic of Tanzania
Vanuatu
Zambia
Therefore, at the end of February, 65 out of 88 (73.9%) of Commonwealth philatelic entities are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps.during 2026. This compares with 82.8% at end of January 2026 and 76.1% at the end of February 2025.
🇮🇴 British Indian Ocean Territory -
Back last summer, it seemed that the British Labour government, now deeply unpopular, had successfully signed away the islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory to the Republic of Mauritius along with agreeing to lease back from Mauritius the strategically important United States airforce base there for a sum of over £30 billion pounds. As a result I removed BIOT from my list of Commonwealth philatelic entities and prepared to close the pages of my BIOT stamp collection for good.
However all is not as straightforward as it seemed. BIOT remains a British Overseas Territory with the potential to issue stamps (though the UPU has taken it upon itself to say that only Republic of Mauritius stamps may be used on the Chagos and other islands of the BIOT) (of course Mauritius has no post office there). The treaty with Mauritius has yet to complete its passage through the British parliament and recently the self-appointed Chief Minister of the BIOT, Misley Mandarin, and other descendants of the most recent inhabitants of the Chagos, called Chagossians, who were expelled from the islands in the early 1970s following the decision of Harold Wilson’s Labour government to do so to enable the building of the US airbase, have landed on Peros Banos, their ancestral home, and have settled there. The British BIOT administration attempted to expel them but this move has, for the present, been rejected by the BIOT Supreme Court.
But it was not only the Mauritius government which has been interested in gobbling up these strategically placed islands which Starmer seems determined to give away but also, to the north, the Republic of Maldives, which views the immense area of sea, a potentially massive fishing area, has withdrawn Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Consequently the Mauritius government broke off diplomatic relations with Maldives.
This story looks like it will run and run but for the moment we still have the BIOT as a continuing page in the stamp album.
