This paper explores how and why speakers of English from multilingual contexts in Asia are identifying as native speakers of English. Eighteen participants from diverse contexts in Asia, covering Singapore, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, and The Philippines, who self-identified as native speakers of English partook in hour-long interviews examining language backgrounds, language use and constructions of native speaker identities of both English and other native languages. The paper used Leung, Harris and Rampton’s [1997. ‘The Idealised Native Speaker, Reified Ethnicities, and Classroom Realities.’ TESOL Quarterly 31 (3): 543–560] constructs of affiliation, inheritance, and expertise to assay how the participants determined native speaker in multilingual contexts. Findings point out that speakers of English in Asia do not identify themselves as native speakers in comparison with or contrast to inner circle speakers of English but rather consider themselves as native speakers in their own right. As such, determining native speaker in multilingual contexts seemd to be a localised, self-reflexive practice.