ASEAN's new digital skills passport will launch within a year as a pilot covering fewer than half of the bloc's ten member states, with early credential recognition concentrated in high-value sectors like EVs and data centres.

ASEAN pilots typically start with a small coalition of states holding compatible digital certification systems rather than waiting for consensus across members with weaker verification infrastructure, such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Lower-skilled and informal work is harder to standardise into verifiable digital credentials, and even where it is certified, destination states like Singapore and Malaysia can keep strict criteria over visas and quotas, so gains stay concentrated among a limited group of higher-skilled, formally credentialed workers.