There are two versions of Cambodia online. On YouTube and agents' websites it's the cheapest, easiest retirement in Asia: a visa anyone over 55 can get, rents in dollars, and Angkor Wat down the road. On expat forums it's scams, border fighting and banks that close overnight.

Both are partly true. Cambodia does have the simplest retirement visa in the region, and for some retirees it's a very good fit. But the visa is simple partly because it asks for so little, and the things it doesn't ask for, such as health insurance, are the ones that matter most once you live there.

This article covers how the retirement visa works, what draws people, and the three things to plan for before you move: healthcare, money and the practical limits on what a foreigner can own.

How the retirement visa works

Cambodia doesn't have a retirement visa you apply for in advance. You enter on the ordinary E visa, which costs $35 as an e-visa, and then extend your stay inside the country as an ER retirement extension.

Who qualifies:

  • Age 55 or over. The Cambodian embassy's ER page adds that there "may be exceptional cases", without saying what they are. Plan on 55.
  • Proof of retirement, such as a pension statement or a social security entitlement letter.
  • Enough money to live on. No minimum is published, and officers decide case by case. The clearest proof is a bank statement showing a pension paid in every month.
  • A passport with at least six months left.

The ER doesn't need a deposit, an investment, a sponsor or health insurance.

Length and cost. Extensions run for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months and can be renewed without limit. The 1- and 3-month extensions end if you leave the country. The 6- and 12-month extensions let you travel and come back. Most people use an agent, and a 12-month extension costs about $275 to $300, or roughly $25 a month. The immigration department doesn't publish its own fee, and agents' quotes can differ by more than double, so get two.

You'll find other figures online. Some pages put the 12-month extension at $35 to $50, and some say it needs $50,000 of health insurance or proof of $1,500 a month in income. The insurance rule dates from the COVID years and ended in November 2021, and no income minimum is published.

One detail that catches people out. Your landlord or hotel must register you in the immigration department's online system for foreigners (FPCS) within 24 hours of arrival, and since July 2020 the immigration department has refused extensions to foreigners who aren't registered. The landlord pays the fine, but you're the one refused. Before each extension, ask your landlord for proof that you're registered at your current address, and put a clause in your lease saying who handles it.

The limits. The ER doesn't let you work, and it has no route for a younger spouse. A partner under 55 needs a different extension, usually one tied to their own work or business.

Why people go

The appeal is real, and most of it comes down to money.

  • The big costs are in US dollars. Rents, hospital bills, insurance and bank accounts are in dollars, and ATMs dispense them. The government has been pushing for wider use of the riel for years, through rules on showing prices in riel, its Bakong payment system and gradual changes at banks, but for anything a retiree pays regularly the dollar still dominates, and the riel is used mostly for market food and small change. The central bank has also kept the riel within a narrow band against the dollar, around 4,000 to 4,120, for years. So if your pension is in dollars, your costs barely move with an exchange rate. A pension in pounds, euros, or Canadian or Australian dollars carries the full currency risk.
  • Rent is low. A furnished one-bedroom costs about $400 to $700 a month in Phnom Penh and about $300 to $450 in Siem Reap. Market food is cheap too.
  • Your pension probably won't be taxed in Cambodia. In practice a resident's foreign pension isn't taxed there. One exception is worth knowing: a 20% capital gains tax has applied since January 2026, and for residents it reaches gains on investments held abroad. If you plan to sell shares or funds after moving, look at that first.
  • The places. The temples of Angkor start a few kilometers outside Siem Reap, Phnom Penh is a lively small capital, and the river town of Kampot and the seaside town of Kep are quiet and cheap.

For a retiree with a dollar pension who wants a simple life in one of those places, the numbers work. The question is what happens when something goes wrong.

Healthcare: the part the visa doesn't cover

This is where Cambodia differs most from Thailand or Malaysia.

Good care is concentrated in two cities. Cambodia's private hospitals are in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and Royal Phnom Penh Hospital is the only one in the country with international (JCI) accreditation. Outside those cities, the Australian government describes medical care as "limited or unavailable". Foreign retirees can't join the public health scheme, bills are in cash, and hospitals usually want cash or proof of insurance before they treat you, even in an emergency.

Serious cases often go abroad. Only two hospitals in Cambodia, both in Phnom Penh, confirm they can open a blocked heart artery: Royal Phnom Penh Hospital, which is private, and Calmette Hospital, the main public referral hospital. A heart attack anywhere else can mean a transfer, and so can a stroke, cancer treatment or complex surgery. The usual destination is Bangkok, with Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore as alternatives. If you live in Kampot, Kep or the provinces, the first leg is by road to Phnom Penh.

And the transfer goes by air. Getting a patient to Bangkok means a scheduled flight for someone who can sit up, or an air ambulance for anyone who can't. (The land crossings to Thailand have also been closed since the 2025 border fighting.) No air-ambulance operator publishes a price for a flight from Cambodia. With evacuation cover, the insurer arranges and pays. Without it, the bill is yours, and the hospital in Bangkok will want a deposit before it admits you.

That's why the lack of an insurance requirement is misleading. Few places in the region make evacuation cover matter more, and the visa doesn't ask for it. If you go:

  • Buy cover that includes medical evacuation and treatment in Thailand at least. Check whether Singapore is inside your area of cover if you'd want treatment there.
  • Ask your insurer now which hospital it would send a patient from your town to, and whether it bills that hospital directly.
  • Hold a 12-month extension. It lets you leave for treatment and come back on the same extension. A 1- or 3-month extension ends the moment you fly out.
  • Keep your passport where others can find it, and don't hand it to an agent for an extension in the weeks before planned treatment abroad.

Our article on why savings don't replace health insurance covers what an evacuation and a Bangkok hospital deposit cost, and why paying your own way takes far more than most retirees have. And our article on why travel insurance isn't health insurance explains why the cheapest plans won't do the job.

Money: keep your savings at home

Cambodia has no deposit insurance. If a bank fails, money held there isn't protected, and in 2026 that stopped being a theoretical risk. The National Bank of Cambodia closed five banks and put a sixth under administration:

  • Prince Bank was placed in liquidation in January.
  • Panda Commercial Bank followed in February.
  • CCU Commercial Bank, Heng Feng (Cambodia) Bank and HH (Cambodia) Bank had their licenses revoked on August 3 and went into liquidation.
  • Chief (Cambodia) Commercial Bank was put under three months' provisional administration on September 21, with withdrawals from deposit accounts suspended.

Several of these banks were linked to sanctioned networks, and all of them were small. The central bank says the three closed in August held about 0.5% of the sector's assets. The wider system isn't collapsing. But for a depositor the effect is immediate: when a bank goes under administration, withdrawals can stop the same day, and a liquidation takes months to pay anyone back, if it pays in full.

The practical rules are simple:

  • Keep most of your savings outside Cambodia. Hold only working money locally: a few months' spending and any large payment you're about to make.
  • Spread what you keep across two large banks, so one closure doesn't cut off your cash.
  • Check a bank's status before you open an account or have money sent to it. The central bank announces revocations and administrations, though its notices are in Khmer.
  • Be wary of high interest rates. Panda Commercial Bank advertised the highest interest rates in Cambodia before it failed.

Other things to know before you go

You can't own land. Foreigners can own a condo unit above the ground floor in a building registered as co-owned, and not within 30 km of a land border. To live in a house, you take a registered long lease of 15 to 50 years. Be careful with houses built on leased land: under the Civil Code, the landowner takes the house when the lease ends, without paying for it, unless a registered agreement says otherwise. Land bought in a Cambodian partner's name belongs to them, and putting land in someone else's name for you is illegal and leaves you with no secure claim. Rent for your first years.

The roads are dangerous. The World Health Organization estimates road crashes killed 18.8 people per 100,000 in Cambodia in 2021, most of them motorcyclists. Whether you ride a motorbike yourself is the biggest safety decision you'll make. For everyday trips, a tuk-tuk or a car booked through an app is cheap and much safer. If you do ride, do it only with a license valid in Cambodia, a proper helmet, insurance that pays for motorbike injuries (read its license and helmet conditions first), and no riding at night. If you have heart disease, osteoporosis or poor balance, don't ride at all: a broken hip that a 30-year-old recovers from can end a 70-year-old's independence, and outside Phnom Penh and Siem Reap the nearest hospital that can treat a serious injury may be hours away. On a motorbike taxi, wear a helmet. The crime you're most likely to meet is bag and phone snatching by thieves on passing motorbikes.

Most rules are published only in Khmer, and little English is spoken outside Phnom Penh and the tourist trade. Practice at the immigration department can change with little notice, which is one reason most people use an agent.

Stay away from the Thai border. Thai and Cambodian forces fought along it in July and December 2025. A ceasefire has held since December 27, 2025, but the US, UK, Canadian and Australian governments still advise against travel near the border, and the land crossings remain closed. Trips to Thailand are by air.

Who Cambodia suits

Cambodia works well for a retiree who:

  • is 55 or over, with a pension that's easy to document;
  • wants one simple extension a year and costs in dollars;
  • is happy living in or near Phnom Penh or Siem Reap, where the hospitals are;
  • will carry insurance with evacuation cover and keep their savings at home.

It's a harder choice for someone who:

  • is under 55, or has a partner who is;
  • has a condition that needs specialist care often;
  • wants to own a house and the land it stands on;
  • has family at home who will need them nearby.

The visa really is as easy as people say. Just don't let an easy visa set your budget. The real costs of retiring in Cambodia are evacuation cover and keeping your money safe, and neither shows up in the visa rules.

Our Cambodia guide covers the ER extension step by step, along with healthcare and evacuation, banking, renting, and where to live. To compare Cambodia with Thailand, Vietnam and the other countries we cover, see our country overviews or try the country match tool.