Cambodia eVisa Foreign Transaction Fee: What the Big Four Add to Your $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Charge

Why your eVisa statement looks heavier than expected

Most Aussies booking a Cambodia trip in 2026 are first-time international-card-payment users on the visa front. The flight is in AUD, the hotel often charges in AUD via the booking platform, and the SIM card gets sorted on arrival. The eVisa is sometimes the only USD-denominated transaction on the entire trip — which means it is the one charge where the foreign-transaction fee actually shows up. The price you see at our checkout is $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist or $90 USD (~$137 AUD) Business, displayed cleanly with the live mid-market AUD equivalent next to the USD figure. The price your bank lands on your statement can be a touch heavier, and the difference is your card issuer's fee structure — not ours.

Take a typical CBA Smart Access debit card. Tap confirm on the eVisa at our checkout, and within 24 hours two lines hit your transaction list on the same date. The main charge converts USD to AUD using CBA's commercial rate, which sits roughly 0.5-1% above the mid-market rate that we display. Then a second line — labelled 'OS SVC FEE' or 'INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION FEE' — adds a flat 3% foreign-transaction fee on the converted AUD amount. The two costs are conceptually different but they arrive together, and the all-in delta from our displayed AUD figure is usually somewhere between $2.40 and $4.90 AUD on the $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist visa.

This article walks through how the fee shows on your statement bank-by-bank, why it splits into two components, which Aussie cards add zero, and how to switch over in about ten minutes. The fee is small in absolute terms but the pattern matters — it repeats on the verified $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD) e-Arrival Card, on USD-denominated hotel deposits if you book direct, and on any other Cambodia transaction processed in USD.

If you want the full picture of what bundles into the headline price, the fees explained piece breaks down the $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist all-in. The AUD conversion guide walks through how the mid-market rate translates into a clean AUD figure at checkout, and the credit-card surcharge article addresses the separate question of merchant surcharges (which we do not apply). For the umbrella reference on cost, documents, and processing time, see the Cambodia visa requirements for Australians hub.

Two costs hiding inside one foreign-transaction fee

When Aussies talk about a 'foreign-transaction fee', they usually mean the flat percentage charge that shows up as its own line on the statement. That is half the story. The other half is the currency conversion margin baked silently into the bank's USD-to-AUD exchange rate. Both add cost to the same eVisa transaction and neither is the fault of the merchant — both are charged by your card issuer.

Component one: the foreign-transaction fee (the visible part)

The foreign-transaction fee is a flat percentage applied to the AUD-converted amount of any non-AUD purchase. On a CBA, Westpac, NAB, or ANZ standard credit or debit card it sits at 3% in 2026. On Bendigo, Suncorp, and BOQ it sits around 2.5-3%. On AmEx personal cards it sits around 3%. The fee lands as a separate line on your statement, clearly labelled. On an $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist eVisa that 3% comes through as roughly $3.66 AUD.

Component two: the currency conversion margin (the silent part)

The conversion margin is the gap between the live mid-market USD-to-AUD rate (the rate you see on Google or XE) and the rate your bank actually uses to convert the charge. Big Four banks typically apply a margin of 0.5-1% above mid-market. So if the mid-market rate puts the $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist visa at $122.40 AUD at the moment of transaction, the bank converts it at a rate that lands the charge at around $123.00-$123.65 AUD. That is an extra $0.60-$1.25 AUD that never appears as its own line — it just sits inside the main charge amount.

How the fee shows on a CBA, Westpac, NAB, or ANZ statement

Each Big Four bank labels the foreign-transaction fee slightly differently and shows it in a slightly different position on the transaction list. Knowing the exact phrasing helps you find it fast — and confirm that the eVisa charge itself settled cleanly with no surprise.

Walking through a CBA statement line by line

On a typical CBA Smart Access debit card the eVisa transaction lands as two adjacent lines on the same date. The first line is the main charge: our merchant descriptor followed by the AUD amount (somewhere in the $123-$124 AUD band depending on the rate at settlement and the embedded conversion margin). The second line is the fee: 'OS SVC FEE' or 'INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION FEE' followed by the percentage value — usually around $3.66 AUD on the $80 USD Tourist visa. On a Business eVisa at $90 USD (~$137 AUD) the fee line is closer to $4.11 AUD. Both lines post within the same banking day; sometimes the fee posts a few hours after the main charge.

Westpac, NAB, and ANZ work the same way structurally — main charge plus a separate fee line below — with different label wording. Premium cards within each Big Four (CBA Ultimate Awards, Westpac Altitude Black, NAB Rewards Platinum on certain tiers, ANZ Rewards Black on certain tiers) sometimes waive the foreign-transaction fee, in which case the main charge still settles at the bank's conversion rate (with the 0.5-1% margin baked in) but no separate fee line appears. If you have a premium card it is worth checking the product disclosure statement before assuming you will be charged 3%.

If your card got declined at our checkout — separate problem from FX fees — the card decline fixes guide walks through the Big Four decline patterns including 3D Secure prompts that some banks throw on first-time USD merchants. The wider payment troubleshooting piece covers PayPal currency settings and the small handful of edge cases where the transaction does not settle cleanly first time.

The five Aussie cards that put the FX fee back at zero

If you fly internationally even once a year, an Aussie no-FX-fee card pays for itself within a single Cambodia trip. The setup time for any of the five below is between five and fifteen minutes — and once activated the card works for every USD or other non-AUD purchase you make, not just the eVisa. Here is what works cleanly on our Cambodia eVisa checkout in 2026.

On any of these the $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist eVisa lands as a single line on your statement — our merchant descriptor and the AUD amount, nothing else. No second line for an FX fee. No 0.5-1% conversion margin (Wise is fully transparent; ING, Macquarie, Bankwest Breeze, and 28 Degrees apply the Visa or Mastercard network rate which sits at or near mid-market). The AUD on the statement matches the AUD on our checkout to within a cent or two of settlement-time drift.

Wise Debit is the fastest setup if you do not already have one

Wise's Aussie Borderless Debit account opens online in about ten minutes with a driver's licence or passport. A virtual card is issued immediately and works with Apple Pay or Google Pay for online purchases (including ours) within minutes. The physical card arrives in 7-10 business days. You can hold an AUD balance and convert to USD on demand at the live mid-market rate (with a transparent ~0.4% conversion fee shown upfront), or pay directly from AUD and let Wise convert at point of charge. Either way the cost is fully visible and there is no separate FX fee line on the statement.

Edge cases, wallets, and what to do if you have already paid

A few common questions come up around the Cambodia eVisa FX fee — Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, premium cards, what happens on a refund, and whether it is worth contesting the fee with the bank. Here is the short version.

Apple Pay and Google Pay inherit the linked card

Apple Pay and Google Pay are wallet wrappers — they pass the charge through to the underlying linked card. If you link a CBA credit card to Apple Pay, the 3% CBA foreign-transaction fee still applies on the eVisa. If you link a Wise debit or a Macquarie debit to Apple Pay, the zero-FX-fee policy still applies. The wallet does not change the fee structure either way.

PayPal does its own conversion, often worse than the bank

PayPal handles USD purchases by converting through its own rate, typically sitting 2.5-4% above mid-market. If you have a USD balance in PayPal, the charge settles in USD with no conversion at all (clean). If you fund from an AUD-linked source, PayPal converts USD to AUD using their own rate — comparable in total cost to a Big Four bank's combined fee, just bundled differently. The PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay support article walks through the wallet specifics in detail.

If you have already paid and copped the fee

If your eVisa already settled with a $3.66 AUD FX fee on a Big Four card, that fee is sunk — it would not be worth a dispute or a chargeback because the underlying merchant transaction is correct and the FX fee is contractually agreed in your card's product disclosure statement. The forward-looking move is to switch to a fee-free card for the next USD transaction — including the verified e-Arrival Card at $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD), where the same 3% would otherwise add about $0.22 AUD. Small individually, but the pattern repeats across every international purchase you make.

Refunds and the FX fee

If we refund the eVisa (within the cancellation window before processing has substantially started), your bank usually refunds its own FX fee too — because the FX fee is contingent on the underlying transaction and the network reverses both together. Some Big Four banks do this automatically within three to five business days; others require a phone call to flag the reversal. The cleanest avoidance path is a fee-free card from the start.

If you are weighing PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay specifically, the wallet article covers each in detail. The refund and cancellation guide walks through our cancellation window and how the FX fee unwinds when a refund is processed.

Next steps and related reading for Australians: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, bookmark our