Cambodia Visa for Siem Reap: e-Visa vs Visa on Arrival, Cost and Pitfalls (2026)

A Cambodian tourist visa costs $30 whichever way you buy it, so the real choice is whether you spend that $30 online a week before the flight or in cash at a counter after it. The e-Visa from evisa.gov.kh and the visa on arrival at Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport give the same 30-day, single-entry stamp. One saves a queue. The other saves a form. Neither is the e-Arrival card, which every passenger fills in anyway, and which is free.

Search results get three things wrong. Many still quote $36 for the e-Visa, the price before the Royal Government of Cambodia cut it to $30 on January 1, 2025. Many confuse the e-Visa with the e-Arrival card and send travelers to pay for a form that costs nothing. And the top results for “Cambodia visa” are often agencies with government-style names and $50 to $90 prices, which the immigration department has publicly disowned more than once.

This guide covers both visas, the e-Arrival card, the lookalike sites, the documents and cash, extensions and overstays, and what changed when the Thai land border closed. It sits under the Siem Reap airport to city guide, which takes over once you clear immigration. Prices, hours and transport times below were checked against operator websites and official sources in October 2026.

Three Documents, Two of Them Optional

The trap most travelers fall into is treating “the visa” as one thing. Arriving at Siem Reap by air involves three separate documents, and only one of them is a visa.

1. The visa itself, bought either as an e-Visa before travel or as a visa on arrival at the airport. You need one or the other, unless your passport is from an ASEAN country with a visa exemption.
2. The e-Arrival card, filed online within 7 days before landing. Everyone needs it, including e-Visa holders. It is free.
3. The passport, valid for at least 6 months from the date you arrive, with blank pages.

A traveler who has the e-Visa but not the e-Arrival card is sent to a kiosk. A traveler who has the e-Arrival card but no visa is sent to the visa counter. A traveler with five months left on the passport can be refused boarding before any of it matters. Get all three right and immigration at SAI takes 10 to 20 minutes outside the busiest arrivals.

The e-Visa: $30, Three Business Days, No Queue

The honest verdict: the better option for anyone who knows the travel dates a week ahead, mainly because it removes the cash and the counter.

Where. Only evisa.gov.kh, run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, at https://www.evisa.gov.kh. The UK government also points to an official e-Visa app for iOS and Android. Anything else is a third party.

What it costs. $30 for the tourist visa, class T, paid by card. The government’s December 2024 press release set the tourist e-Visa at $30 and the business e-Visa, class E, at $35 from January 1, 2025, down from $36 and $42. The $36 figure on older pages was the $30 visa plus a $6 processing fee. If the payment page shows more than $30 for a tourist visa, stop and check the address bar.

What you upload. A scan of the passport photo page and a recent digital photo on a plain background. Give the hotel name in Siem Reap as the address. The form asks for an entry date but the visa is not tied to it.

How long it takes. About three business days. Apply at least four days ahead, as the UK government advises, and two weeks ahead for peace of mind. Weekends and Cambodian public holidays, such as Khmer New Year in mid-April and Pchum Ben in late September or October, do not count as business days.

How long it lasts. The e-Visa is valid for entry within three months of issue and gives a 30-day stay from the date of entry. It is single entry. If you leave Cambodia for a side trip to Vietnam or Laos, you need a new visa to come back.

What to carry. Two printed copies, one for entry and one for exit, plus the PDF on the phone. Immigration officers at SAI sometimes keep the paper copy.

The limitation: three business days is a real wait if you decide on Thursday to fly on Saturday, and an e-Visa with a typo in the passport number is a problem at the desk. Check every digit before paying.

The Visa on Arrival at Siem Reap Airport: $30 Cash and a Photo

The honest verdict: perfectly workable, and the right choice for last-minute plans, as long as you land with the right cash.

The visa counter sits before immigration in the arrivals hall at Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport, 50 km east of the city. You fill in a short paper form, hand over the passport, one photo of roughly 4 by 6 cm and $30 in US dollar notes, wait while the visa is printed and pasted into the passport, then walk to the immigration line. The same counter sells the business visa for $35.

Cash, not card. Some travelers report card payment being accepted for air arrivals in 2025 and 2026. Others were sent to find an ATM. Bring $30 per person in clean notes, ideally a $20 and a $10. A bill with a tear, a missing corner, tape or heavy ink is refused at this counter as everywhere else in Cambodia, because the banks charge to accept it. Riel, euros and baht are not accepted for the fee.

The photo. Bring two. Travelers report being photographed at the airport when they forget, but that is not a published service and not one to plan around.

The queue. It depends entirely on how many aircraft land together. One narrow-body from Bangkok means a few minutes. A wide-body plus two regional flights landing together means a long wait at the counter before the immigration queue even starts. That is the e-Visa’s only real advantage, and on the wrong afternoon it is a large one.

The limitation: the counter takes the passport out of your hands for several minutes, the line is unmarked, and the people who handle the stamps are not the people who take the money. Watch the passport and keep the receipt.

The e-Arrival Card: Free, Mandatory, Often Confused

The Cambodia e-Arrival card replaced the paper arrival and customs forms for air arrivals at Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville in 2024. It applies to every passenger, including Cambodians, e-Visa holders and visa on arrival buyers.

• Where: arrival.gov.kh, at https://arrival.gov.kh, or the official Cambodia e-Arrival app.
• When: within the 7 days before landing. Not earlier. A form filed 10 days ahead is rejected by the system.
• Cost: nothing. Any site asking for money for the e-Arrival card is not the government.
• Result: a confirmation email with a QR code, shown at immigration.

Fill it in on the phone the evening before the flight, with the flight number, the hotel name and the passport at hand. It takes about ten minutes. Airport kiosks exist for anyone who forgets, but the kiosk queue forms behind the same aircraft as the visa queue.

The limitation: the form asks for health and customs declarations as well as travel details, and the app has been unreliable on older phones. If the app fails, the website works.

The Lookalike Sites

Search “Cambodia visa” and the first results are often not evisa.gov.kh. They are agencies with official-looking names, Cambodian flags and prices of $50 to $90 for the same $30 visa. Some do submit an application to the real system and pocket the difference. Some deliver nothing.

Cambodia’s General Department of Immigration has issued repeated warnings. In June 2026 it named cambodiaivisa.com as “not an official platform recognised by the Royal Government of Cambodia,” and in 2025 it warned against cambodia-e-arrival.com, which charged for the free e-Arrival card. Earlier warnings named cambodiaimmigration.org. Cambodian authorities have said they have no legal means to recover money paid to these sites.

Three checks settle it:

1. The domain ends in .gov.kh. evisa.gov.kh for the visa, arrival.gov.kh for the arrival card, immigration.gov.kh for the immigration department. Nothing else.
2. The tourist visa total is $30. Not $30 plus a service fee, not $49 “fast track,” not $36.
3. The e-Arrival card costs nothing. A site charging for it is wrong by definition.

The same caution applies to anyone at the airport offering to “speed up” the visa for a fee. There is no official fast track at the visa counter.

Passport, Photos and Cash: The Checklist

• Passport validity: at least 6 months from the date you arrive in Cambodia, not from the date you leave. Airlines check this at the departure gate in Bangkok, Singapore or Ho Chi Minh City.
• Blank pages: the visa on arrival is a full-page sticker. Leave at least two blank pages.
• Condition: the UK government notes the passport must be undamaged and complete. A torn cover or water-damaged data page can mean refusal.
• Photos: two printed photos of about 4 by 6 cm for a visa on arrival, a digital photo for the e-Visa.
• Cash: $30 per person in clean US dollar notes for the visa on arrival, plus enough for the first taxi. The fixed-fare taxi to town is $35 per car. The money in Siem Reap guide explains why a clean $1 note matters more than a $100 note.
• Onward ticket: rarely checked at SAI, but airlines sometimes ask for one at check-in.

How Long You Can Stay, and Extending It

The tourist visa gives 30 days from the date of entry, counted on the stamp. Most visitors to Siem Reap stay three to five days and never think about it. Those combining Siem Reap with Phnom Penh, Kampot and the coast sometimes do, and the one-week Cambodia itinerary shows how quickly a slow trip fills 30 days.

Extending. A tourist visa can be extended once, for 30 more days. In Siem Reap the usual route is a travel agency near the Old Market or on Sivatha Boulevard, which takes the passport for several working days and deals with the immigration office. No official extension fee is published online. 2025 and 2026 travel sites give totals from about $30 to $50 including the agency’s margin. Start the process a week before the visa expires, and do not plan a flight or a domestic bus while the passport is with the agency.

Registration. Hotels and guesthouses register foreign guests with the police through an online system. The UK government notes that a traveler who has not been registered may have trouble extending. A homestay or informal room that does not register guests can create that problem.

Longer stays. Anyone who wants months rather than weeks needs a different class of visa, usually the ordinary visa, class E, which is the business visa. That is outside the scope of a holiday.

Overstaying

An overstay is fined per day, commonly reported at $10 per day, and settled with immigration before you are allowed through to the departure gate. The UK government’s advice is blunt: there is no upper limit to the fine, overstayers can be detained and deported, and an overstay of more than 30 days means you must leave Cambodia and pay. A one-day overstay caused by a cancelled flight is a payment and a delay. A long one is a legal problem.

Count from the entry stamp. A traveler who entered on March 3 must leave by April 1, and a 10:00 p.m. flight on April 2 is one day over.

Visa Exemptions and the Land Borders

ASEAN passports. Citizens of ASEAN member states enter Cambodia without a visa for periods set by nationality. Check the period for your passport with the Cambodian embassy before assuming it covers the whole trip.

Everyone else from North America, Europe, Australia and most of the world needs a visa. There is no visa-free entry for US, Canadian, Australian, British or EU passports.

The Thai land border. All land crossings between Thailand and Cambodia, including Poipet and Hat Lek-Cham Yeam, have been closed since June 23, 2025, after a border dispute turned into armed clashes. The UK government’s advice still described them as suspended in its latest update, dated March 19, 2026 and marked current in October 2026. The way from Bangkok to Siem Reap is a flight, covered in the guide to Bangkok to Siem Reap while the land border is closed.

Other land borders. Crossings with Vietnam, such as Moc Bai-Bavet between Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh, remained open in 2026. The visa on arrival is available at land crossings, but e-Visa acceptance varies by crossing. Check the list on evisa.gov.kh before relying on an e-Visa at a land border.

Phnom Penh first. Travelers who land at Techo International Airport in Phnom Penh, the capital’s new airport since September 2025, use the same e-Visa, visa on arrival and e-Arrival card, then continue to Siem Reap by road or air, as described in Phnom Penh to Siem Reap by bus, flight or boat.

By Situation

You booked months ahead and land at a busy time

The e-Visa, applied for two to three weeks before the flight, printed twice. File the e-Arrival card the evening before. You walk past the visa counter while others queue behind a wide-body arrival.

You are booking this week

The visa on arrival. Land with $30 per person in clean notes and a photo each. Do not pay a third-party site a $20 premium for an “express” e-Visa that may arrive later than the counter would have produced one.

You are a family of four

The e-Visa for everyone, children included, because four people queuing at the counter with four photos, four forms and $120 in exact cash is slow after a long flight. Each child needs a separate visa and a separate e-Arrival card. The family logistics after the airport are in Siem Reap with kids.

You want to stay longer than 30 days

Take the standard tourist visa and extend it once through an agency in Siem Reap, a week before day 30. If the plan is clearly more than 60 days, look at a business visa before the trip.

You are flying in from Bangkok

Same visa options as any other air arrival. The flight is about an hour, and the arrival at SAI is identical to any other. Fill in the e-Arrival card before leaving for the airport in Bangkok, because the flight is too short to do it on board.

What It Actually Costs

Item	Price	Paid how	Notes
Tourist e-Visa, class T	$30	Card, online	evisa.gov.kh only. About 3 business days
Tourist visa on arrival	$30	US dollar cash	At SAI before immigration. One photo
Business visa, class E	$35	Online or cash	Needed for extensions beyond 60 days
e-Arrival card	Free	Not applicable	arrival.gov.kh or app, within 7 days of landing
Lookalike visa sites	$50 to $90	Card	Same visa, or nothing
Extension, one time, 30 days	No official fee published, about $30 to $50 in travel reports	Cash via agency	Passport held for several days
Overstay	Commonly reported at $10 per day	Cash at departure	No upper limit to the fine per UK advice
Passport photos at home	Varies	Not applicable	Bring two

The visa fee does not include anything else. The airport taxi at $35, the shuttle at $8 and a SIM card at $5 to $10 come after immigration. The visa is the second fixed cost of a Siem Reap trip after the Angkor Pass, which is $37 for a day, $62 for three days and $72 for seven, as explained in the Angkor Pass guide. Both sit inside the per-day figures in what Siem Reap costs per day.

What Other Guides Get Wrong

1. “The e-Visa costs $36.” That was the price until December 31, 2024: a $30 visa plus a $6 processing fee. The government’s own announcement set the tourist e-Visa at $30 from January 1, 2025. Pages quoting $36 have not been updated.
2. “The e-Arrival card is your e-Visa.” It is not. The e-Arrival card is a free arrival and customs form that every air passenger completes, visa or no visa. It does not let you enter Cambodia on its own.
3. “Apply for the e-Arrival card as soon as you book.” The system only accepts submissions within the 7 days before landing. An early submission fails.
4. “Any site with a Cambodian flag is official.” The official domains end in .gov.kh. The immigration department has named lookalike sites in 2025 and again in June 2026, and money paid to them cannot be recovered through Cambodian authorities.
5. “Pay the visa on arrival in baht or riel.” The fee is in US dollars, and a torn dollar note is refused. Bring clean notes.
6. “Cross at Poipet and get the visa at the border.” The Poipet crossing has been closed since June 2025, with every other land crossing between Thailand and Cambodia. Any overland plan from Bangkok in 2026 is out of date.

Where to Go Next

Once the passport is stamped, the next 50 km are covered in the Siem Reap airport to city guide, with the $35 taxi, the $8 shuttle and what still works after 9:00 p.m. A SIM or eSIM bought before the taxi counter makes everything after it easier, and SIM cards and eSIM in Siem Reap compares the three networks. In town, getting around Siem Reap gives the fair tuk-tuk fares and how PassApp and Grab behave, and is Siem Reap safe? sets the honest level of risk. For the bigger planning question, the best time to visit Siem Reap decides which month you will be filling in that e-Arrival card for.