Do You Need a New Cambodia eVisa Every Trip? Returning Americans Explained

What carries over from your last application (and what does not)

Here is the part that actually helps returning Americans: while the visa itself does not carry over, almost everything you learned and gathered last time does. Your second application is the same five-item pack as your first, and most of those items are already sitting on your phone from the last round. That is why returning travelers routinely finish the upload in a couple of minutes instead of the ten-plus it took the first time.

What you can reuse from last trip

• Your passport — same passport, as long as it still has 6 months of validity from your new date of entry and one blank page for the stamp. If you renewed since the last trip, you re-scan the new bio page.
• Your knowledge of the form — the field order, the photo specs, the payment step. None of that changes between applications, so the second run is muscle memory.
• Your accommodation answer — "a hotel name and city" is all the form needs, so if you are staying somewhere similar you already know the drill. No booking reference required.
• Your payment method — the same card, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay works again with no re-verification on our side.

What does NOT carry over

• The visa itself — the single biggest one. The old approval PDF is a souvenir, not a travel document, the moment you have left Cambodia.
• Your old e-Arrival Card — it is per-arrival and cannot be reused for a new trip (more on that below).
• Your old passport photo, if it is now more than 6 months old — Immigration wants a recent photo, so an aging shot from last year may get flagged. A fresh phone photo against a white wall fixes it in 90 seconds.
• Your previous arrival date and flight details — every application is tied to the specific trip you are taking now.

The net effect: returning Americans re-apply faster, not free. The fee is the same every trip, but the friction drops to near zero once you know the rhythm. If you want a tight pre-flight routine for repeat applications — what to have open, what to skip, how to clear the upload in one pass — our faster re-apply checklist for returning Americans is built for exactly this.

The e-Arrival Card is also new every single trip

If the visa rule surprises returning travelers, the e-Arrival rule catches them a second time. The Cambodia e-Arrival Card — the mandatory digital arrival declaration every air traveler files before landing — is also strictly per-arrival. There is no carry-over, no reuse, no "I did one last year." Each Cambodia arrival needs its own fresh e-Arrival Card, filed within the 7-day window before that specific flight.

So a returning American on a straightforward second trip is really filing two things: a new eVisa (the entry permission) and a new e-Arrival Card (the arrival declaration). They are separate systems, separate steps, separate small fees. The e-Arrival Card is 14 fields covering your flight, your Cambodia address, and a short customs declaration, and it regenerates from scratch every trip because the flight and dates are different each time.

On a multi-arrival loop the math compounds: two Cambodia arrivals means two eVisas and two e-Arrival Cards. You cannot file one e-Arrival Card to cover both legs, and you cannot reuse the QR code from your first arrival on your second. Our guide to why the e-Arrival Card is new each trip for US visitors breaks down the per-arrival logic and the exact 7-day timing for each leg.

How returning Americans re-apply in a fraction of the time

The first Cambodia eVisa application feels like work because everything is new — you are reading the photo specs for the first time, second-guessing the accommodation field, hunting for your passport scan. The second one is nothing like that. Returning Americans who know the shape of the form routinely complete the whole thing during a coffee break. Here is the fast path.

1. 1
   Gather the same five items

   Passport with 6 months validity, a photo from the last 6 months, your card or digital wallet, and a hotel name and city — most already on your phone from last trip.

2. 2
   Enter passport details

   Type your details exactly as they appear in the machine-readable zone, then upload the recent photo and the passport bio-page scan.

3. 3
   Fill the short trip section

   Add this trip's arrival date, flight, and Cambodia address — no flight booking, hotel reservation, or bank statement required.

4. 4
   Pay and submit

   Tourist eVisa $80 USD or Business eVisa $90 USD, all-in, paid by card, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.

5. 5
   Approval in 3 business days

   It lands as a printable PDF by email; if anything is flagged, resubmission is free, so a stale photo or glare costs a quick fix, not a fresh fee.

6. 6
   File a new e-Arrival Card

   Separate per-arrival step: $5 USD verified through us, 14 fields, filed within 7 days before your flight into Cambodia.

Before you start, have four things ready on your phone or desk: your passport (or its bio-page scan from last time, if the passport is unchanged and still has 6 months validity), a passport photo taken in the last 6 months, your card or digital wallet, and a hotel name and city for your Cambodia address. That is the entire pack. No flight booking, no hotel reservation, no bank statement, no itinerary — none of that was required last time and none of it is required now.

Then it is the same sequence you already ran once: enter your passport details exactly as they appear in the machine-readable zone, upload the photo and the bio-page scan, fill the short trip section, pay, and submit. Approval lands in 3 business days as a printable PDF by email — the same outcome as your first trip. If anything gets flagged, resubmission is free, so a stale photo or a glare on the scan costs you a quick fix, not a fresh fee.

The one thing worth checking before you re-apply is whether the price has shifted or whether you should switch visa types this round. Most returning tourists stay on the Tourist eVisa, but if this trip is a longer business stay you may want the Business eVisa instead, since it is the only Cambodia visa that can be extended in-country. Our breakdown of the Cambodia Tourist eVisa price for US citizens has the current all-in figure so there are no surprises at checkout.

Edge cases for frequent returners and regional loopers

The Returning-Travelers desk fields the same handful of edge cases over and over. If you fly to Cambodia several times a year, or you are building a multi-country Southeast Asia route, these are the ones worth knowing before you book.

There is no limit on how often you can re-apply

Americans worry that filing eVisa after eVisa will trip some kind of frequency flag. It will not. There is no cap on the number of single-entry eVisas you can hold across separate trips, no mandatory cooling-off period between visits, and no penalty for being a frequent visitor. A consultant who flies in monthly applies twelve times a year, every time at the same $80 Tourist or $90 Business price and the same 3-business-day approval. Each application stands alone.

Long stays: extend instead of looping

If your real goal is a long continuous stay rather than repeat trips, do not plan a "visa run" — a quick hop out and back to reset the clock. That just burns a second eVisa and a second e-Arrival Card for nothing, and the automatic tourist extension that some travelers remember ended in November 2025. The clean route for a long stay is the Business eVisa, which is the only Cambodia visa you can extend from inside the country in 1, 3, 6, or 12-month blocks through an immigration agent. One entry, then extend — no looping required.

Land-border loops are off the table for now

Returning travelers who remember crossing the Thailand land border on an older trip should know it is closed: all 7 Thailand-Cambodia land borders have been shut since June 2025, so a Cambodia-Thailand-Cambodia route by road is not currently possible. You fly instead, and each flight back into Cambodia is still a fresh single entry needing its own eVisa. If you previously visited and want to confirm whether your earlier visa has any standing for the next trip, our walkthrough on reusing a Cambodia eVisa on a second trip answers it directly — the short version is no, but the detail matters for planning.

Putting it together for your next Cambodia trip

The headline answer is simple and worth holding onto: yes, every trip to Cambodia needs its own eVisa. The visa is single-entry, it is consumed the moment you leave, and the 3-month validity is a deadline to arrive, not a license to come and go. Your old approval PDF is a keepsake. Your next trip starts fresh.

But fresh does not mean hard. Returning Americans re-apply on the same five-item pack — passport, photo, scan, email, payment — most of which is already on your phone from last time. Tourist eVisa $80 USD or Business eVisa $90 USD, both approved in 3 business days, both delivered as a printable PDF by email, both with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction, all backed by US-timezone support. Then a fresh e-Arrival Card for the arrival itself: $5 USD verified through us, 14 fields, filed within 7 days before you fly.

Next steps and related reading for returning travelers: apply for your next Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, bookmark the Cambodia visa hub for US citizens as your single canonical reference, run through the faster re-apply checklist before you start, and confirm the per-arrival rule in our guide on whether you can reuse a Cambodia eVisa on a second trip.