Cambodia is the easiest country in Asia to stay in legally, year after year, and that single fact explains most of the foreigners who live there. There is no income test, no bank deposit, no health check and no language exam. You arrive on an ordinary visa, extend it indefinitely from inside the country, and keep extending it.
What has changed — and what most guides still have wrong — is that the low bar is now a documentary bar with real penalties behind it. And the things that are cheap in Cambodia sit alongside a small number of things priced like a rich country, all of which happen to be the things that matter when something goes wrong.
This page is an overview. The city pages are coming, and we would rather build them with someone who actually lives there than from a desk — see the bottom of the page.
Cambodia at a glance
| Long-stay route | Ordinary (E-class) visa, extended indefinitely in-country as EB, ER, ES or EG |
| Income requirement | None |
| Retirement extension | ER, age 55+, no codified income minimum — but you may not work on it |
| Single person, Phnom Penh | About US$1,000–1,400 a month all in |
| Couple | About US$1,500–2,200 a month |
| 1-bed, Phnom Penh | US$630 central, US$361 outside the center |
| Siem Reap | 21% cheaper than Phnom Penh including rent; 43% cheaper on rent |
| Currency | Riel, but the economy runs on US dollars — riel is the small change |
| Healthcare | Routine care is fine in Phnom Penh. Serious cases fly to Bangkok or Singapore |
| US travel advisory | Level 2. UK advises against all but essential travel within 20 km of the Thai border |
| Road deaths | 18.8 per 100,000 — the biggest genuine threat to your life |
| Property | No land. Strata-title flats only, first floor and above |
| Tax | Up to 20% on salary; residents taxed on worldwide salary; no US or UK treaty |
| Checked | 29 September 2026 |
The visa system, which is why most people are here
You enter on an ordinary visa — the E class, as opposed to the T tourist visa — and then convert it into an extension inside the country. The extensions are:
- EB — business or employment. The default for working-age foreigners, including most people who are not obviously employed.
- ER — retirement, from age 55. No codified income minimum, which makes it genuinely unusual in the region. You may not work on it.
- ES — student.
- EG — general, for job-seeking. Single entry, six months, and it cannot be renewed. Do not build a plan on it.
Extensions run for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months, and there is a trap in the tiers: the 1- and 3-month extensions are single entry. Only the 6- and 12-month versions are multiple entry. If you intend to leave and come back — and in a country where serious medical care means a flight to Bangkok, you should assume you will — you need the longer tier, which is also the tier where the paperwork starts to bite.
“The business visa requires nothing” is out of date
That was true around 2016. Tightening is documented from 2017 and deepened around 2022. A 6- or 12-month EB extension now wants an employment letter on a company stamp — or a self-written letter with your own business stamp — and, where the holder actually works, a valid work permit.
The honest version is neither “it requires nothing” nor “it’s hard now.” It is: the bar is still low, but it is a documentary bar with real penalties behind it, and an agent will assemble the documents in a day. What catches people is assuming the EB extension is a work permit. It is not.
The work permit is a separate regime, and it is now enforced
Immigration issues your visa extension. The Ministry of Labour issues your work permit. They are different agencies with different deadlines, and conflating them is the most common error in Cambodia guides.
Renewals fall due by 31 March each year; new arrivals have 90 days. The penalties are the part that has changed: statutory fines of roughly KHR 12.6 million (about US$3,150) per unpermitted employee, around KHR 63 million (US$15,750) where five or more are involved, and about KHR 50.4 million (US$12,600) for a self-employed foreigner working without one — tripled for repeat offences, with up to three months’ imprisonment and deportation also available.
Two newer things that catch people
Foreigner registration is now gating extensions. Under the FPCS system, your landlord is legally responsible for registering you at your address. An unregistered foreigner can be refused a visa extension. Get the registration commitment in writing before you sign a lease — this is a new failure mode and it is entirely avoidable.
Enforcement has stepped up sharply. Cambodia deported 52,224 people in the first eight and a half months of 2026 — more than double the roughly 20,000 in the preceding 28 months, and 72,426 in total since September 2023. Only about one in three were connected to the scam compounds. The rest were illegal residence and illegal work. Overstaying costs US$10 a day and, past a point, gets you deported and blacklisted.
One thing to ignore: the “CM2H” golden visa. It publishes no sub-decree, no investment figure and no fee schedule, traces its authority to a 2022 memorandum of understanding, and falsely claims to be the only route to a Cambodian passport. The ER extension gives you indefinite renewable residence for a fraction of the noise.
What it costs, and the three things that aren’t cheap
A single person living modestly but comfortably in Phnom Penh runs about US$1,000 to $1,400 a month; a couple about $1,500 to $2,200. A lean single in an outer district eating local can get to $700–900, but that budget contains no insurance, no air-conditioning habit and no school fees. Siem Reap is 21% cheaper including rent and 43% cheaper on rent. Kampot, Kep and Battambang are cheaper again, though no reliable dataset exists for them and the trade-off is infrastructure and imported goods.
Then there are three line items that price like a rich country, and they are not incidental.
- Electricity. The top residential band runs around 730 riel per kWh, roughly US$0.18 — higher than the US or UK average. Year-round air conditioning in a country where April averages 35°C is a $100–200 monthly bill. Landlords in serviced buildings often resell electricity above the utility tariff, so ask the per-kWh rate before signing. (These bands were last confirmed unchanged for 2024; treat them as indicative.)
- International schools. Top-tier Phnom Penh tuition for 2026/27 reaches about US$33,850 a year at Grade 12, with 15–25% more in the first year for capital levies and registration. Mid-range schools run roughly $6,750–19,750 and budget options $1,500–6,750. Two children at premium schools exceeds $60,000 a year in a country where a central one-bedroom is $630 a month. This is the figure that breaks the “Cambodia is cheap” story.
- Getting out when you’re ill. See the next section.
Money in practice
Cambodia is one of the most dollarised economies in the world, and for a foreigner that is a real daily advantage over Thailand or Vietnam. Rent, school fees, hospital bills and most restaurant meals are priced and paid in US dollars. Riel is the small change, effectively fixed at 4,000 to the dollar — pay $10 for a $6.50 meal and you get a $3 note and 2,000 riel back.
De-dollarisation is a live policy, but it has barely touched daily life. The visible change is that banks no longer issue $1, $2 or $5 bills, so small denominations arrive as riel by default. Two practical notes: there are no fee-free ATMs for foreign cards — expect US$4–10 per withdrawal, so take out larger amounts less often — and always decline the machine’s offer to charge you in your home currency, which costs 3–7%.
Healthcare, bluntly
Routine care in Phnom Penh is fine. A chest infection, a broken wrist, a dental crown, a check-up — the private clinics handle all of it competently and cheaply. Siem Reap has two hospitals foreigners use. Outside those two cities there is effectively nothing for a foreigner with a serious condition.
For anything serious, the settled practice of residents, embassies and the medical community is the same: you leave the country. The Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh states on its own page that medical facilities and services in Cambodia “generally fall below international standards”, and that there is no free public healthcare for foreigners. The US State Department notes that ambulance services are not widely available, that ambulances are not equipped with advanced medical equipment, and that most Cambodian hospitals do not accept US health insurance. Treat an ambulance as transport, not treatment — and note that a taxi is often faster.
The number that should decide whether you move here
An uninsured air evacuation to Bangkok or Singapore runs upwards of US$20,000 — and the people flying you will expect to be paid up front. That last clause is the part that ruins people, because it turns a solvable problem into an impossible one at the worst possible moment.
Both the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department specifically direct residents to hold insurance covering medical evacuation. We are not going to publish a premium range, because no credible source produced one — the figures circulating online are unsourced. Get a quote, confirm in writing that the policy names air ambulance or medical evacuation to a center of excellence, and confirm it pays the provider directly rather than reimbursing you afterwards.
One more layer, and it is current rather than historic: counterfeit medication. Roughly 10% of medicines circulating in Cambodia have been judged counterfeit on a WHO benchmark, and in July 2026 police in Kandal seized 23,400 boxes of unregistered medicine covering 120 products in a single vehicle stop. Buy from hospital pharmacies or the chains attached to international clinics, not from street pharmacies or social-media sellers. For anything you actually depend on — cardiac, diabetic, thyroid, psychiatric — bring it in with you or source it in Bangkok.
Emergency numbers: 117 for police, 119 for an ambulance. In practice, private hospitals run their own ambulances and are generally faster.
Safety, and the thing you have read about
The United States rates Cambodia Level 2 — exercise increased caution. The UK Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel within 20 km of the Thai border (the US says 50 km) following the 2025 border conflict and the ceasefire of 27 December 2025. That is newer than most Cambodia pages have caught up with, and it matters: the overland route to Thailand that regional expats used for years is disrupted, and Poipet sits inside the advisory zone.
Day to day, the risks are mundane. The US security bureau rates Phnom Penh a high-threat location for crime but a low threat for kidnapping. The characteristic crime is bag snatching by thieves riding past on motorbikes — carry nothing on your street-side shoulder, and never loop a strap over your handlebars.
And then the actual danger, which is boring and therefore ignored: the roads. Cambodia runs about 18.8 road deaths per 100,000 people, well over four times the US rate. If you ride a motorbike casually here, that is the statistic that should frighten you, not anything in the next section.
The scam compounds: three things are true at once
Cambodia has become the center of a global story about cyber-scam compounds, forced labor and trafficking. You will read that it is irrelevant to residents, and you will read that the country is lawless. Neither survives the evidence.
1. It is not a direct physical threat to you. These are closed facilities staffed by people recruited and trafficked into them. Kidnapping risk for an ordinary foreign resident is assessed as low. You are far more likely to be hurt on a motorbike.
2. But it has reshaped the banking plumbing, and you will feel that. Two Cambodian banks were designated by the US Treasury in 2026, and US authorities cut one major Cambodian payments group off from the American financial system in October 2025 and proposed the same for another in June 2026. The Governor of the National Bank has publicly warned of a third FATF grey-listing and conceded the effect on cross-border financial operations. The practical consequence for you is simple: keep a fully functioning account in your home country. Do not bank only in Cambodia.
3. The real danger to a foreigner is the job offer. An analysis of 4,991 recruitment posts to July 2026 found ads in Khmer, Chinese and English, with some specifically naming Australia and New Zealand. Postings dipped to 162 in May 2026 and recovered to 588 by July, while the share advertising overseas placements rose from about 5% to 55% — the industry is relocating, not dying. Treat any unverified job offer in the region, especially one that pays well for vague work and arranges your travel, as the single most dangerous thing you could accept.
Against the “lawless” reading: Cambodia has raided roughly 2,500 sites since June 2025, dismantled some 200 centers, deported more than 72,000 foreigners since September 2023, and arrested the highest-profile figure in the sector in January 2026. The state is acting. Whether it is acting fast enough is a different question, and one you can reasonably weigh before moving.
Property, and tax
Foreigners cannot own land in Cambodia. What you can own is a strata-titled private unit in a co-owned building — and the 2010 law is precise about it: ownership runs from the first floor up, with ground and underground floors excluded, nothing within 30 km of a land border outside designated zones, no common areas and no land parcel. There is also a cap of around 70% on the foreign share of a building’s private-unit floor area, which can make a specific flat legally unavailable to you even when the developer is happy to sell.
Nominee structures — holding land through a Cambodian company or a trusted local — are common and are exactly as risky as they sound. And the market itself argues against buying in a hurry: Phnom Penh had roughly 80,000 condominium units by the end of 2025 with absorption running at 3–4%, described by one international agency as the lowest in recent decades. Rent first. There is no shortage.
On tax: Cambodia is not a tax haven, whatever you have read. Tax on salary runs up to 20% above roughly 12.5 million riel a month (about US$3,125), residents are taxed on worldwide salary, and residency turns on the familiar 182-day test. Cambodia has eleven double-taxation treaties and neither the United States nor the United Kingdom is among them — which removes protections rather than granting them. If your tax position is not simple, take advice before you move rather than after.
The practical texture
- Internet. Cambodia’s measured national median sits near the bottom of global rankings, but advertised fiber in Phnom Penh is cheap and fast — 60 Mbps and above for around US$25 a month. Both are true. For a remote worker: fiber in a Phnom Penh or Siem Reap apartment is generally fine for video calls, a mobile-data backup is essential, and outside the two main cities do not assume anything.
- Mobile. A SIM costs a dollar or two and data is genuinely cheap. You must present a passport with a valid visa to buy one.
- Climate. There is no cool season. April is the hottest month at around 35°C; December nights fall to about 23°C. The wet season runs May to November, peaking in August. January is the driest month by a wide margin.
- Getting around. Motorbike, tuk-tuk — Grab and PassApp are the apps — private car, and intercity bus or minivan. There is passenger rail, but the southern line to Kampot and Sihanoukville runs a handful of weekend services and the northern line publishes no passenger schedule at all. It is a day out, not a commute.
- Flights. Phnom Penh’s new Techo International Airport opened in September 2025 with capacity for 13–15 million passengers a year and is running well below it — arrivals in the first five months of 2026 were down about 26% year on year. Connectivity is regional, thin beyond the regional hubs, and volatile: several carriers have added or dropped routes within months. Given that serious medical care means Bangkok, that volatility is worth pricing into your plans rather than assuming cheap frequent hops.
Who Cambodia suits, and who it doesn’t
It suits retirees over 55 with a modest fixed income and no complex medical needs, who want indefinite legal residence without an income test or a health check — on paperwork burden alone, Cambodia beats Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. It suits people who have hit a wall with a neighbouring country’s visa regime; Phnom Penh is an hour from Bangkok and forty minutes from Ho Chi Minh City. It suits small business owners willing to formalise, because compliance is cheap in absolute terms and the market is under-served. And it suits people who prefer to be paid and to pay in dollars.
It does not suit — and this one comes first — anyone with a serious or unstable medical condition, or anyone who would not actually buy insurance with air-evacuation cover. Cambodia is not the place to develop a cardiac problem at 74. Beyond that: families needing English-medium schooling on a budget; remote workers whose income depends on reliable bandwidth outside the two main cities; anyone who wants property at the center of their plan; anyone whose plan depends on courts and contract enforcement working; US taxpayers hoping residence will simplify anything; anyone who will ride a motorbike casually; and anyone arriving without income, hoping to find work.
The cities we will cover next
No official statistics on foreign residents by Cambodian city exist, so the order below is a judgement from rental listing volume, the breadth of expat infrastructure and what established guides actually cover.
| City | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Phnom Penh | The only place with real depth — the hospitals, the schools, the banks, the work. Also the worst traffic and the highest crime exposure. The first page we will build. |
| Siem Reap | Clear second. Its own international airport, 21% cheaper, two hospitals foreigners use. Thin on serious medical care and on work outside tourism. |
| Kampot | The retiree and slow-living favorite. Riverside, cheap, walkable, small established community — and no serious hospital, so everything goes to Phnom Penh. |
| Sihanoukville | Needed precisely because it is the hard case: hundreds of stalled buildings, an economy reshaped by the crackdown, named in sanctions. We will write it as a warning with a beach attached, not as a coastal bargain. |
| Battambang | The second city that isn’t — colonial architecture, relaxed, a small French-leaning community, and genuinely low on amenities. |
| Kep | Quieter and smaller than Kampot, seaside, essentially retirement-only. Probably a section inside Kampot to begin with. |
| Koh Kong · Mondulkiri | Small documented communities, badly served online. Good pages to own if someone knows them. |
If you live in Cambodia, we would rather publish you than guess
Everything above is sourced, dated and checked — but it is researched, not lived. The city pages are worth more when they come from someone who has actually queued at immigration, argued about an electricity bill, and knows which hospital to go to at 2am.
If that is you, get in touch. We will credit you properly, and we are not looking for marketing copy — we are looking for the things that are only obvious once you are there.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really that easy to live in Cambodia long term?
Easier than anywhere else in the region, yes. There is no income test, no bank deposit, no health check and no language exam, and the extensions renew indefinitely. What is no longer true is that it requires no paperwork — a 6- or 12-month business extension wants an employment or company letter, and if you work you need a separate work permit from the Ministry of Labour, renewable by 31 March each year. The bar is low; it is not absent.
How much do I need a month?
About US$1,000–1,400 for a single person in Phnom Penh living comfortably, or $1,500–2,200 for a couple. Siem Reap is roughly a fifth cheaper. You can live on $700–900 in an outer district eating local food, but that figure contains no insurance, no air conditioning and no school fees — and in Cambodia those are precisely the expensive things.
Is the healthcare good enough?
For routine care in Phnom Penh, yes. For anything serious, no — residents, embassies and the medical community all treat evacuation to Bangkok or Singapore as the norm. An uninsured air evacuation runs upwards of US$20,000 and is typically payable up front. Insurance that explicitly names medical evacuation, and that pays the provider directly, is the single most important thing to arrange before you move.
Should I be worried about the scam compounds?
Not for your physical safety as an ordinary resident — kidnapping risk is assessed as low and these are closed facilities. Two things do reach you. Banking friction, because US designations of Cambodian banks and payment firms are real and the central bank has warned of a further FATF grey-listing, so keep a working account at home. And job offers: recruitment ads now appear in English and increasingly advertise placements outside Cambodia, so treat any unverified, well-paid, vaguely-described job that arranges your travel as the most dangerous thing on offer.
Can I buy a place?
You can buy a strata-titled flat from the first floor up — never land, never a ground floor, nothing within 30 km of a land border outside designated zones, and subject to a cap of around 70% foreign ownership of a building’s private floor area. Nominee structures to get around the land rule are common and genuinely risky. With roughly 80,000 Phnom Penh condo units and absorption at 3–4%, there is no reason to hurry. Rent first.
Sources
- Visa and extension structure, durations and entry types: Acclime Cambodia, July 2025. Work permit obligations and penalties: DFDL and KPMG commentary on Joint Prakas 498 (2023) and Ministry of Labour notifications, January–February 2026.
- Deportation figures: Cambodian Ministry of Interior, 19 September 2026.
- Cost of living: Numbeo Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, September 2026 (a thin sample that skews to expat consumption), cross-checked against realestate.com.kh rental listings, retrieved 29 September 2026. Electricity bands: Electricity Authority of Cambodia schedule, last confirmed unchanged for 2024. School fees: published 2026/27 tuition, Northbridge International School Cambodia.
- Healthcare: Australian Embassy Phnom Penh medical services page and US State Department Cambodia country information, retrieved 29 September 2026; UK FCDO Cambodia health advice, updated 26 August 2026. Counterfeit medicine: Cambodge Mag, 9 August 2026.
- Safety: US Department of State travel advisory; UK FCDO Cambodia travel advice; OSAC Cambodia Country Security Report, 11 March 2026. Road deaths: WHO estimate, 2021.
- Scam compounds, sanctions and recruitment: US Treasury and FinCEN actions 2025–2026; National Bank of Cambodia public remarks; ABC News analysis of 4,991 recruitment posts, 25 September 2026; UN OHCHR reporting.
- Property: Law on Providing Foreigners with Ownership Rights in Private Units of Co-Owned Buildings, promulgated 24 May 2010, Article 6; DFDL on the foreign-ownership cap; Knight Frank on Phnom Penh condominium absorption.
- Tax: General Department of Taxation salary tax bands and published treaty list. Rail: Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Airports: Cambodianess, 20 September 2026.
- Deliberately not published here, because no primary source could be verified: official visa and extension fees, any overstay fine cap, the blacklist period, a retirement-extension income minimum, insurance premium ranges, precise internet speeds, and rents for Kampot, Kep or Battambang. Cambodia’s expat-guide sector is now heavily contaminated by AI-generated sites publishing confident undated figures — be sceptical of any page that gives you a precise visa fee without citing the schedule it came from.
- Checked 29 September 2026. Immigration rules and advisories change without notice, and this page is not legal, medical or tax advice — confirm anything you are about to act on.
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