How to Get a Cambodian Travel Visa

Cambodia is quickly becoming one of the most popular Southeast Asia tourist destinations. Rich with history, relatively unknown to Westerners due to recently closed borders and filled with warm, loving people, Cambodia offers an exotic destination at a very affordable price. To enter this enchanting land, American citizens must have a travel visa, good for 30 days.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Passport valid for more than three months at time of entry to Cambodia
• <br>Recent digital passport photo
• <br>Valid credit card—Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover

1. Ensure your passport is up to date. It must be valid for six months after entry to Cambodia. Have recent passport-sized pictures of yourself. Sometimes, persnickety immigration officials want to see proof that you’ll be exiting the country and may want to see a return airline ticket.
2. Log on. The Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation launched e-Visa (see Resources). This process requires an online application, digital pictures, credit card ($20 fee plus $5 for processing) and of course, your passport number. A visa will be emailed to you. Print it out and bring it with you to Cambodia. You must use your visa within three months of receiving it.
3. Visit the Cambodian embassy in Washington D.C. and apply in person. You’ll need to fill out the application, provide two passport pictures of yourself and have a valid passport. You can pick up the visa in person or have it returned by mail. To have it returned by mail, applicants need to supply a prepaid envelope addressed to themselves. The envelope must be certified mail, Express mail, FedEx, UPS, Airborne or DHL.
4. Use the postal service. Visa applications may be downloaded from the Embassy of Cambodia website and mailed to the address listed. Complete the application and send it via registered mail to the embassy. Be sure to supply a postage paid return envelope.
5. Head for the border. You can get a visa at the border if taking the overland route in from Thailand or Vietnam. Additionally, a visa may be obtained at the airport. However, these points of entry can be very crowded and take a long time. Also, you may be subject to the whim of an immigration officer.

Tips & Warnings

• In many ways, Cambodia is a much more conservative country than the United States and one of those ways is in dress and appearance. Looking clean and well groomed is far more advantageous than appearing dirty and disheveled.
• Cambodia is considered a dangerous country. Think twice before offering a bribe to a public official or venturing off the beaten path. Land mines are a very real part of Cambodian life.