Cambodia eVisa Says Pending: How Long It Takes and What to Do

How long pending should last — and why the dates shift

Pending should last up to 3 business days, and the word that does the heavy lifting there is "business." The clock counts Monday through Friday and skips weekends and Cambodian public holidays entirely. It also starts from a complete submission, not from the moment you began typing. So a file submitted clean on Tuesday is typically approved by Friday, while one submitted late on a Friday night does not begin counting until the following Monday — and lands closer to the following Wednesday.

The other thing that moves the calendar date is the time difference. Cambodia runs 11 to 14 hours ahead of US time zones, so a Monday-evening application from Denver is already Tuesday in Phnom Penh. That usually works in your favor: your "day one" often starts the same calendar day you apply, or even a day earlier than you would expect. None of this changes the 3-business-day window itself — it only changes which calendar days those three business days fall on, which is exactly why pending can feel longer than it really is when you are counting in your own time zone.

• Weekends are dead air. A pending status that carries across Saturday and Sunday has not stalled — those days simply do not count toward the 3 business days, so the clock picks back up on Monday Cambodia time.
• Cambodian holidays pause it, not US ones. Khmer New Year in April and Pchum Ben in autumn can add a day or two to pending. The Fourth of July or Thanksgiving do not affect Cambodian Immigration at all.
• The 11-to-14-hour gap shifts the date. Because Cambodia is well ahead of every US time zone, the calendar date your status flips to approved is often a day off from what a literal "three days from now" count would suggest.

If you want to watch the status change rather than wonder about it, you can track it directly. Our step-by-step guide to checking your Cambodia eVisa status walks through where to look, what each stage means, and how to read the queue without refreshing every five minutes.

When pending is fine, and the rare time to act

Here is the simple rule. Within 3 business days, pending is fine — full stop. You do not need to email anyone, resubmit anything, or start a second application. In fact, starting a second application is one of the few things that genuinely causes problems, because a duplicate file under the same passport can confuse the review and slow both down. If you are inside the window, the best thing you can do is nothing.

There are exactly two situations where pending warrants action. The first is an email asking you to correct something — almost always a photo that got auto-flagged or a passport scan with glare on the laminate. That email is not a rejection; it is a quick fix. Reply with the corrected file and the clock keeps running from there. The second is when pending runs clearly past 3 business days with no email at all. That is uncommon, and it usually traces back to a weekend, a Cambodian holiday, or an approval PDF that quietly landed in your spam or promotions folder.

So before you assume something is wrong, check your spam and promotions folders first — automated approval emails filter there more often than you would think. If pending is genuinely past the window and your inbox is empty, that is the point to reach out, and our breakdown of what to do when a Cambodia eVisa takes longer than expected covers the common fixable causes and the exact steps to get it moving again.

It is also worth knowing why fixing a flagged file is painless rather than costly. The 3-business-day clock only runs on a complete submission, so a corrected photo or scan effectively restarts that clock from the day you re-upload — and free resubmission is part of the all-in price, not a paid do-over. You will never be charged again to fix a flag. If you would rather just see the moment the PDF arrives, our note on when the Cambodia eVisa arrives by email explains the delivery side of the same timeline.

Things that quietly extend a pending status

Most of the time pending is doing nothing more than counting down 3 business days. But a handful of avoidable things can stretch it, and all of them are within your control before you submit. Knowing the list ahead of time is the single best way to make sure your status moves straight from pending to approved without a detour.

• A flagged photo. Smiles, glasses, hats, off-white backgrounds, shadows behind the head, and low resolution are the usual auto-flags. A clean photo against a plain white wall is what keeps pending short.
• A hard-to-read passport scan. Glare on the laminate or a cropped corner forces a correction. A flat, evenly lit bio-page capture with all four edges in frame avoids it.
• A name or passport-number mismatch. The details on the application must match the passport machine-readable zone exactly. A single typo can hold a file at pending until it is corrected.
• Applying right before a Cambodian holiday. Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben pause the clock, so a file submitted just before either will sit at pending longer than usual through no fault of its own.
• A second, duplicate application. Submitting twice under the same passport can cross the wires on the review. If you think your first application did not go through, check its status before starting a new one.

The throughline is simple: a clean file the first time keeps pending short. That is the whole reason a checked-before-it-reaches-Immigration application earns its keep — the issues above get caught and fixed before they can stall your status. If you want the full month-by-month picture of how timing affects the queue, our complete guide to Cambodia visa processing time for US citizens maps it out.

One more status that is not your visa: the e-Arrival card

While you are watching your visa sit at pending, it is worth knowing about a second, separate step that catches Americans out — the e-Arrival card. It is the digital immigration, customs, and health declaration every air traveler files, and it runs on the opposite clock from the visa: you file it within 7 days before you land, not weeks ahead. It is 14 fields and $5 USD verified through us. Do not confuse it with your visa being pending; they are two different things on two different timelines. Our explainer on whether you need the Cambodia e-Arrival card covers exactly who files it and when.

Keep the two clocks separate and pending stops being stressful. The visa is the early task: submit it 2 to 3 weeks before you fly, let it sit at pending for its 3 business days, and forget about it once the PDF arrives, because it stays valid for 3 months from issue. The e-Arrival card is the late task: file it in the final week, inside the 7-day window. Americans who plan both at the start sail through arrivals at Techo International (KTI), the new Phnom Penh airport that replaced the old PNH code on September 9, 2025.

Put it all together and pending is the least dramatic part of the whole process: it is the normal state, it clears in 3 business days, it is delivered as a printable PDF by email, with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction and US-timezone support if anything stalls — a Tourist eVisa at $80 USD or a Business eVisa at $90 USD, one flat fee. When you are ready, you can apply for your Cambodia eVisa and have the whole thing handled in about ten minutes.