Cambodia + Vietnam Visas for Americans: Get Both Right for One Trip

Two separate systems — what each one is

Cambodia and Vietnam each run their own electronic visa, issued by their own immigration authority, valid only for their own country. There is no reciprocity, no transit arrangement, and no combined product. A Cambodia eVisa gets you into Cambodia and nowhere else; a Vietnam e-visa does the same for Vietnam. You hold both, you present each at the relevant border, and that is the whole arrangement.

The Cambodia eVisa for Americans

The Cambodia Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in for US citizens, with the Business eVisa at $90. Both are approved in 3 business days and delivered as a printable PDF by email. The visa is valid for 3 months from issue and allows a 30-day single-entry stay. You apply with a US passport scan, a passport-style digital photo, an email address, and a card. There is no return flight, hotel booking, or bank statement required at the application stage — the Cambodia eVisa is one of the lightest application packs in the region.

The Vietnam e-visa for Americans

Vietnam issues Americans an e-visa that costs about $25 for single-entry or $50 for multiple-entry, valid for up to 90 days depending on the option you select. The application asks for the same core inputs — a passport scan, a digital photo, and a card payment — plus a planned entry date and intended entry/exit port. Vietnam processes the e-visa in roughly three working days for most US applicants. Unlike Cambodia, Vietnam has no separate arrival card to file; once the e-visa PDF is approved, that single document is what Vietnamese Immigration checks at the desk.

The practical upshot: you are running two parallel mini-processes, not one big one. They do not talk to each other, so a delay or a flagged photo on one side has no effect on the other. Budget each fee as its own line item and treat the two applications as independent from start to finish.

What the combo costs and what you upload

For a standard one-way Indochina trip, the combined visa cost for an American is straightforward to add up. A single-entry Vietnam e-visa at $25 plus a Cambodia Tourist eVisa at $80 comes to $105 in visa fees. Add the $5 verified Cambodia e-Arrival Card and the total reaches $110 for both countries, fully covered. If your route loops back into Vietnam after Cambodia, swap the $25 single-entry Vietnam e-visa for the $50 multiple-entry version, which lifts the visa total to $130 plus the e-Arrival.

These are line items, not deal-breakers. The Cambodia figure is fixed and all-in: it includes the approval delivered as a printable PDF, free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction, and US-timezone support, so there is no second invoice if your photo bounces. Budget both visas at the start of your planning and the cost of the paperwork barely registers against flights and accommodation.

The documents both countries want

The good news for combo travelers is that the upload pack is almost identical for both. Prepare one set and you can reuse it across both applications: a clear scan or photo of your US passport bio page with all the machine-readable text legible; a recent passport-style digital photo against a plain white background, no glasses, neutral expression; a working email address that accepts PDF attachments; and a card for payment. Cambodia accepts Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

One detail that catches Americans on both sides: your US passport needs at least 6 months of validity from your date of entry, and both immigration systems read your details from the passport machine-readable zone, so the name on each application has to match your passport exactly — character for character. If you hold a second nationality, decide which passport you are traveling on before you file either visa, and use that same passport for both. Our Cambodia eVisa documents guide for Americans walks through the photo and scan specs that cause most avoidable rejections.

The order to apply and when to file

Apply for both visas on the same day, ideally 10 to 14 days before your first international flight. There is no operational reason to stagger them — the two portals process independently, in parallel, in about three business days each. Filing together also means you have both approvals in hand well before departure, with buffer to fix a flagged photo on either side without touching your travel dates.

If you want a small sequencing preference, file whichever country you enter first as the priority application, and keep the entry dates on each form aligned with your actual itinerary. The Vietnam e-visa asks you to nominate an entry and exit port, so have your first Vietnam airport or land crossing decided before you start that form. The Cambodia eVisa asks for an intended arrival date but does not lock you to it — the visa is valid for 3 months from issue, so a date shift of a few days inside that window is no problem.

Build in a buffer, not a panic

Three business days is the standard approval window for each visa, but "business days" is the operative phrase. A US weekend or a Cambodian or Vietnamese public holiday extends the calendar wait, so a Friday-night application does not start moving until the following week. Filing 10 to 14 days out absorbs any of that. Leaving both visas to the last 72 hours is the single most common way combo travelers turn a routine application into a stressful one.

If you are sketching out the actual days on the ground, our 2-week Vietnam and Cambodia itinerary for Americans maps a realistic route with the visa checkpoints marked, and the Indochina loop guide adds Laos as a third stop for travelers doing the full circuit.

Crossing between the two: the Bavet land border

Most American combo travelers cross between Vietnam and Cambodia by land on the Saigon-to-Phnom Penh route. The crossing is Moc Bai on the Vietnamese side and Bavet on the Cambodian side. Tourist buses run it daily, the journey takes roughly 6 to 7 hours including border processing, and Americans who already hold both approved visas walk through without issues. It is the only crossing most travelers use, and it is open and operating normally in 2026.

The non-negotiable rule: both visas must already be in hand before you reach the border. Neither country issues a casual tourist visa at the Moc Bai–Bavet land crossing, so a missing approval means you do not cross. This is exactly why filing both online, 10 to 14 days out, matters — the land border is not a fallback for a visa you forgot to apply for.

One regional note that reshapes any overland plan involving Thailand: every Thailand–Cambodia land border has been closed since June 2025, with no scheduled reopening confirmed as of April 2026. The old Bangkok-to-Siem Reap overland hop no longer works. If Thailand is on your wider itinerary, you fly between Thailand and Cambodia rather than driving. The Vietnam–Cambodia land border is unaffected by that closure — Moc Bai–Bavet remains the reliable overland link for the combo.

If the land crossing is your plan, our Bavet border crossing guide for US citizens covers the bus routes, what the officers check, and how long each side actually takes. Flying between the two is also straightforward — Saigon to Phnom Penh and Hanoi to Siem Reap are short, well-served hops.

The single-entry trap on loop trips

This is the part that catches more combo travelers than any document mistake. Both visas default to single entry, and single entry means exactly that — one crossing in, and the visa is spent. The moment you leave the country, that visa is finished, even if you intended to come back the next day.

Picture a common loop: fly into Saigon, bus to Phnom Penh, see Angkor Wat, then return to Vietnam to fly home from Hanoi. That route enters Vietnam twice — once at the start, once on the return — so a single-entry Vietnam e-visa will not work. You need the $50 multiple-entry Vietnam e-visa for that itinerary. The Cambodia eVisa is always single-entry by design, so it handles the one Cambodia leg of that loop perfectly, but if your route re-enters Cambodia at any point, that second entry requires a second Cambodia eVisa application.

The rule of thumb: count the number of times you cross into each country, and buy an entry for each. One entry into a country, single-entry visa. Two or more entries, multiple-entry where the country offers it (Vietnam), or a fresh application each time where it does not (Cambodia). Map your border crossings before you file, not after you have already paid for the wrong entry type.

Re-entering Cambodia after a side trip into Vietnam or Laos is common enough that we wrote it up in full: our guide on re-entering Cambodia after Vietnam or Laos for Americans walks through exactly when you need a second eVisa, and our single vs multiple entry explainer covers the decision for your specific route.

The Cambodia e-Arrival step and putting it together

One last piece that Vietnam does not have an equivalent for: the Cambodia e-Arrival Card. Every air arrival into Cambodia must file it — 14 fields covering your passport, flight number, arrival date, accommodation, and a short customs declaration. It is separate from the eVisa, mandatory, and submitted within 7 days before your flight into Cambodia. Our verified e-Arrival is $5 USD, checked end-to-end before it reaches Cambodian Immigration. A single date-format slip on the Card is one of the most common reasons travelers get bounced back at the kiosk, so it is worth getting right.

If you fly into Cambodia, you file the e-Arrival Card. If you cross into Cambodia by land at Bavet, the e-Arrival requirement does not apply the same way — it is the air-arrival step — but your eVisa still has to be approved and in hand. Vietnam asks for nothing equivalent on either side; the e-visa PDF is the whole document set at the Vietnamese desk.

So the full combo, start to finish: two separate visas, filed online on the same day 10 to 14 days out; one Vietnam e-visa (single or multiple entry depending on your loop) and one Cambodia eVisa; the Cambodia e-Arrival Card if you fly into Cambodia; and both approvals in hand before you reach any border. When you are ready, you can apply for your Cambodia eVisa now, and keep our Cambodia visa hub for United States citizens bookmarked as the single reference for every Cambodia rule, fee, and document.