Cambodia eVisa Blank-Page Rule for Australians in 2026: 2 Facing Pages, Counted Properly

Why the blank-page rule trips up well-travelled Aussies in 2026

Most Aussies who get bumped at Cambodian Immigration in 2026 are not bumped because the eVisa is wrong, or the photo is wrong, or the 6-month validity is wrong. They are bumped because there is nowhere clean for the officer to land the entry stamp. Cambodian Immigration wants two facing blank pages — a left-hand page and a right-hand page next to each other — and well-travelled Aussies with Schengen entries, an Indian e-Visa sticker, an Indonesian arrival stamp, a Japan landing stamp and a UK chop on every other spread genuinely do not have that pair sitting empty by the time they fly.

The rule itself is not subtle. The officer flips the passport open at the visa section, scans for a clean spread, and stamps. If there is no clean spread, the conversation gets quieter and the queue stops moving. Cambodia is one of the easier countries in the region to enter on paper, but the page count is one of the genuinely strict checks at the arrival counter. Officers at Techo International (KTI), Siem Reap-Angkor (SAI) and Sihanoukville (KOS) all run the same standard.

This guide is the full blank-page rule for the Cambodia eVisa as Aussies need to read it in 2026 — what 'blank' actually means, how to count pages properly, what happens at the arrival counter if the count comes up short, and the DFAT priority-renewal workaround that has saved more than a few trips. If you have not started the document side yet, the Cambodia eVisa documents required checklist covers the wider list. For the canonical reference on cost, documents, and processing, see the Cambodia visa for Australian citizens hub.

What 'blank pages' means (and why 'unused' is the trap)

The first thing to understand is that Cambodian Immigration counts blank pages, not unused pages. The two phrases sound interchangeable. They are not. An Australian passport has a visa section in the middle — that is where entry stamps and visa stickers go — and a smaller back-of-passport section that is labelled 'Pages reserved for endorsements'. The endorsements section is structurally similar to the visa section and looks identical at a glance, but Cambodian Immigration officers will not stamp on it.

If you flip to the back of your Australian passport and count three clean pages, then turn to the visa section and count zero, you do not have three blank pages for Cambodia. You have zero. The endorsements pages are reserved by DFAT for official notes and visa-equivalent annotations, and Cambodian Immigration treats them as off-limits for the arrival stamp. Officers will return you to the secondary line and ask for proper visa-section pages, which you do not have, which is where the trouble starts.

How to count pages on your own passport tonight

Sit at a table under good light, open your Australian passport, and turn slowly through the visa section page by page. Mark with a soft pencil tick on a separate sheet — not on the passport itself — every page that is completely empty of any stamp, sticker, hand-written endorsement, or perforation note. Pay attention to the spread. Two blank pages that face each other across the central fold count as a facing pair, which is what Cambodian Immigration wants. Two single blank pages with a stamped page between them are not a facing pair, even though they sum to two blanks.

The other detail that catches a few Aussies: an Indian e-Visa or Vietnam visa sticker takes a full page, and many travellers forget the sticker is still there long after the trip is finished. If your last big trip was Indochina or Schengen, the chances are very real that two or three pages disappeared to stickers you did not consciously count. The Cambodia eVisa passport validity rules guide covers the related 6-month rule, which often surfaces at the same time as the page count.

What happens at KTI, SAI or KOS if the count comes up short

When a Cambodian Immigration officer opens an Australian passport and cannot find a clean spread, the standard process is to set the passport aside, gesture you to the secondary holding area, and call a supervisor. The supervisor reviews the passport, the eVisa printout, and the e-Arrival confirmation. From there the outcomes split into three lanes. Most commonly the supervisor finds a single blank page they are willing to stamp on the edge of, the entry is recorded, and you are released into the arrivals hall. The trip continues, but you spent 40 minutes in a holding line you did not need to spend.

Less commonly, the supervisor declines to stamp anything and offers to reroute the passenger. Reroute in this context means refusing entry and putting you on a return flight, which is the worst case and genuinely does happen — not every week, but more often than airlines or travel agents will tell you. The third lane is the in-between: the officer asks for a fee or a 'service' payment to stamp on a borderline page. Refuse politely and ask for a supervisor; the formal Cambodian Immigration process does not require a payment to stamp a passport.

Across the three Cambodian arrival airports — KTI in Phnom Penh, SAI in Siem Reap, and KOS in Sihanoukville — the standard is the same on paper but the consistency varies by shift. KTI is the busiest and runs the strictest. SAI is closer to tourist-flow and tends to be more accommodating on borderline counts. KOS is the smallest and the most case-by-case. None of them is forgiving when there are genuinely no clean pages left. The Cambodia airports KTI SAI KOS overview covers the wider arrival experience at each.

The DFAT renewal workaround when your passport is full

If the page count comes up short and the trip is anywhere inside 4 weeks, the only clean fix is a DFAT renewal. Australian passports are not page-extendable — DFAT discontinued the additional-pages service years ago, and the only path to a fresh visa section is a full new passport. The cost is real, but the alternative is a refused entry at KTI, which is materially worse.

DFAT priority renewal runs at roughly 2 business days for around $251 AUD uplift on top of the standard adult fee of around $325 AUD as of June 2026. You apply in person at a passport office, hand over the old passport, fresh photos, the renewal form and payment, and the new passport is typically in your hand inside 3 calendar days. The DFAT priority passport service detail page lists the locations and what to bring on the day.

Standard renewal sits at roughly 3 weeks turnaround for around $325 AUD. If your trip is more than 5 weeks out, the standard path is fine. Inside 4 weeks, priority is the realistic option. The Cambodia eVisa passport renewal DFAT Australia guide walks through both pricing tiers and the document submission rhythm.

Last-minute reality: trip is in 10 days and the count is short

Inside 10 days is uncomfortable but recoverable. The sequence runs like this. Book the earliest available DFAT priority appointment in person at your nearest passport office. Bring the old passport, two fresh photos that meet DFAT's specifications, the renewal form completed in advance, and payment for both the standard fee and the priority uplift. Priority issuance is roughly 2 business days, so a Monday appointment usually yields the new passport by Wednesday or Thursday.

Once the new passport is in your hand, apply for the Cambodia eVisa with the new passport number that same day. Approved in 3 business days at $80 USD (~$122 AUD) for Tourist or $90 USD (~$137 AUD) for Business, with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction. If the trip is genuinely tight — say, flight on day 9 with new passport in hand on day 4 — the eVisa landing on day 7 leaves two days of margin. Inside 5 days from new passport to flight is too tight for the standard 3-business-day eVisa, and at that point a Visa on Arrival fallback at KTI, SAI or KOS becomes the realistic alternative.

Three days of slack is the comfortable buffer. Two days of slack is tight but workable. Inside two days, the airline check-in counter starts to be a real risk for any unrelated document hiccup, and the safer move is to push the flight back by a week. The Cambodia visa edge cases for Australians guide has worked walkthroughs for the genuinely compressed timelines.

Putting it together before you book the flight

Open your Australian passport tonight before you do anything else — before the flight booking, before the eVisa application, before the itinerary spreadsheet. Find the visa section. Count the facing blank pairs. If you have two clean facing pages or more in the visa section, the trip can move forward. If you have one or none, the trip stops at the DFAT counter until a new passport is issued. The Cambodia eVisa passport bio-scan rules guide covers the related scan-quality requirement for the application itself.

If you want the wider eligibility and pathway picture before you commit to the page count, the Do Australians Need a Visa for Cambodia explainer covers the eligibility, fee, and pathway picture in full. When you are ready to apply, the Australian application walkthrough takes you through the upload step-by-step.

Next steps and related reading for Australians: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for Australian citizens as the single canonical reference, skim the FAQ on Cambodia visa eligibility for quick answers, and use our glossary of Cambodia visa terms to decode any acronym in this guide.