Cambodia Visa During Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben: Plan Extra Processing Time

The 2026 holidays that matter most for processing

Not every Cambodian holiday meaningfully dents your timeline — a single-day observance in the middle of the week costs you one business day and rarely changes anything if you applied with any margin. The two that genuinely reshape the calendar are the long ones, and both deserve a circle on your planning calendar if your trip lands anywhere near them.

Khmer New Year — mid-April

Khmer New Year is the biggest holiday in Cambodia, and it falls in mid-April every year — the official national holiday runs three days around the 14th, but in practice the country slows down for the better part of that week as people travel home to their provinces. If you are flying to Cambodia in April, treat the middle of the month as a processing dead zone and apply well before it. This is the single most common holiday that catches US travelers off guard, precisely because mid-April is an unremarkable stretch on the American calendar.

Pchum Ben — late September to early October

Pchum Ben is a major religious holiday honoring ancestors, and it lands in late September or early October — the exact dates shift year to year because they follow the Khmer lunar calendar, with an official multi-day national holiday at the peak. Like Khmer New Year, the real-world slowdown is wider than the official dates as families travel to pagodas across the country. If your trip is in the late-September-to-early-October window, build in the same extra buffer you would for April.

Beyond those two, a handful of single-day national holidays are sprinkled through the year — days marking the King's birthday, Independence Day in November, International New Year, and others. Individually they each cost at most one business day, so they only bite if you applied at the very last minute. The practical rule is simple: the two multi-day holidays demand real planning, and the single-day ones are absorbed for free by the modest buffer this guide recommends anyway.

How far ahead US travelers should apply around a holiday

Outside the holiday windows, the standard advice holds: applying a few days to a week before you fly is plenty for a 3-business-day approval, and the eVisa is valid for 3 months from issue so there is no penalty for going early. Near Khmer New Year or Pchum Ben, stretch that. Aim to apply about two weeks before departure rather than a few days.

Two weeks is not arbitrary. It does two jobs at once. First, it swallows the holiday block itself — even a full week of closure leaves comfortable room on either side. Second, it leaves slack for a free resubmission. If Immigration flags something on your photo or a passport detail, you fix it and the file goes back in the queue; with two weeks in hand, that round trip happens long before your flight, even if a holiday sits in the middle of it. Apply three days out during Khmer New Year and a single flagged photo could genuinely put your departure at risk.

A useful way to think about it: count backward from your flight, then mentally cross out any Cambodian holiday and weekend you find in the final two weeks. Whatever business days are left are the ones actually doing the work. If that number looks thin, move your application date earlier until it looks comfortable. You are not paying for speed — you are buying margin, and margin is free.

This is the holiday-specific version of advice we give for every trip. Our guide on how far in advance to apply for the Cambodia eVisa walks through the general timing math, and the piece on applying for a Cambodia visa at the last minute covers what to do when you have already left it late and a holiday is bearing down.

Where the e-Arrival Card fits in the holiday timeline

There is a second document that travels alongside your visa, and its timing rules are the opposite of the visa’s — which is exactly why it is worth separating in your head. The e-Arrival Card is a short pre-arrival declaration: $5 USD, 14 fields, submitted within 7 days before you arrive. It is not the visa, and it is not approved on a 3-business-day cycle, so the holiday math that governs your visa does not apply to it the same way.

The practical sequence around a holiday is clean once you stop bundling the two together. Lodge the visa early — about two weeks out if a holiday is near — so the long-lead, holiday-sensitive document is settled while you still have runway. Then handle the e-Arrival Card on its own clock inside the 7-day pre-arrival window, closer to departure. Trying to do both at once is what creates the late-application crunch, because the e-Arrival cannot be filed too early and the visa should not be filed too late.

One detail that reassures American travelers: because the e-Arrival window is the last seven days before you land, it almost always sits clear of the part of the calendar where you were worried about the visa. Get the visa done with its buffer, and the e-Arrival becomes a quick, separate task you tick off in the final week — no holiday anxiety attached.

The bottom line: plan the date, not the panic

Holiday delays sound alarming and are genuinely the easiest delay to design around, because the dates never surprise anyone who looks. The eVisa is still approved in 3 business days; Cambodian public holidays simply pause that count, and the two long ones — Khmer New Year in mid-April and Pchum Ben in late September or early October — are the only ones that demand real planning. Apply about two weeks ahead near either, and the closure plus any free resubmission both vanish into your buffer.

Nothing about the price changes for a holiday application — there is no rush tier and no surcharge for going early or filing close to a closure. The Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in and the Business eVisa is $90 USD all-in, both delivered as a printable PDF by email and both backed by free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction. The only lever you pull is the calendar, and pulling it early costs you nothing.

Next steps and related reading for US citizens: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, read how long the Cambodia eVisa takes for Americans for the standard 3-business-day window, see how far in advance to apply to set your own date, and use the full Cambodia visa processing time guide for US citizens as your single reference on timing.