Cambodia eVisa Stuck on Day 4 — A Diagnosis Ladder for Aussies

Rung 2 — A quiet MRZ or photo flag pushing the SLA to 4-5 days

If the holiday check comes up empty, the next rung is a manual-review flag. MFAIC's eVisa unit runs every uploaded passport bio page through an automated MRZ reader and every photo through a face-detection pass. If either of those checks returns a low confidence score, your file routes to a manual-review queue and the 3-business-day SLA stretches to 4-5 business days while a processing officer eyeballs the assets.

The most common triggers on the MRZ side are a glare strip from a window or kitchen light across the bottom of the bio page, a slight rotation that throws off the optical reader, or a fold-line in the middle of the page where the spine sits. The most common photo triggers are the background being slightly off-white, a shadow falling across one side of your face, or your face occupying noticeably more or less than 70-80 percent of the frame. None of these are rejections — they just slow the clock.

The honest signal that your file is in this category is whether you received any post-submission email from us referencing a quiet recheck. Through us, if a flag fires, we tend to spot it on the same business day and resolve it without bothering you — most of the time you would not even know it happened, you just see the approval land on Day 4 or 5 instead of Day 3.

If you suspect a photo or passport-scan issue is the trigger, the Cambodia eVisa photo requirements piece and the passport bio-scan guide for Australians both cover the specs we work to up front. Catching these before submission is the single biggest reason files clear inside 3 business days without ever touching a manual-review queue.

Rung 3 — Weekend overlap on a Wednesday or Thursday submission

If the calendar is clean and you have no email about a recheck, the third rung is usually weekend arithmetic. A Wednesday-evening Sydney submission lands at MFAIC mid-afternoon Khmer time on Wednesday, so Wednesday is Day 1, Thursday is Day 2, Friday is Day 3 — and the approval often comes through late Friday Khmer evening, which is Saturday Sydney morning. That is on-schedule. But if MFAIC's officer processes your file early on Monday instead, your Sydney clock now reads four working days because Saturday and Sunday have both ticked past you while the Khmer queue was closed.

A Thursday submission is even more common. Thursday is Day 1, Friday is Day 2, weekend pauses, Monday is Day 3, approval typically Monday evening Khmer time which is Tuesday morning Sydney. Sydney elapsed clock — five calendar days. Still on-schedule. The reason this rung feels frustrating is psychological more than operational — the weekend genuinely is dead time on the Khmer side, but your Sydney brain is still counting the days.

The Friday application timing piece for Australians walks through every weekday submission slot in detail with worked examples. If you are planning a future application and want the cleanest possible timeline, that is the upstream piece to read.

What NOT to do — the duplicate-submission trap

Across all four rungs of the ladder, the move that turns a routine Day 4 wait into an expensive Day 7 problem is the same — opening a fresh application, paying a second fee, and hitting submit on the theory that two applications double the chance of approval. Do not do this. Through us or through anyone else, a duplicate on the same passport number triggers Cambodian Immigration's anti-duplicate rule almost every time.

The operational consequence is consistent. MFAIC's system detects the second file within a few hours of submission, both files route to a manual-review queue, and the standard officer decision is to void both rather than guess which one is the real one. By the time you see the void notice, two charges of $80 USD (~$122 AUD) for tourist files or $90 USD (~$137 AUD) for business files have already cleared your card. The refund path on the second fee is slow on the direct portal and even through us it takes a few business days to claw back.

The duplicate rule exists to protect the 3-business-day window for everyone. If submitting twice worked, every nervous applicant would do it, the queue would double, and the SLA would collapse to a week. MFAIC enforces it the same way regardless of whether you submitted through the direct portal, through us, or one of each — the system reads the passport number, not the route.

What TO do — wait through Day 5, then reply on the thread

If you have walked the ladder and none of the rungs explain your Day 4 pending status, the answer is still 'wait one more day'. Business Day 5 — five Khmer working days, not five Sydney calendar days — is the honest threshold where waiting graduates into chasing. Below that line, your file genuinely has not been touched yet in MFAIC's queue and reaching out earlier does not move it up.

When Day 5 does pass without movement, the action is simple. Reply on the original confirmation email thread we sent you when you paid — the one with your reference number in the subject line. One sentence is plenty: 'Hi, Day 5 with no movement — can you escalate?'. That reply triggers a direct ticket from us to MFAIC's eVisa unit, referencing your MRZ number and your submission timestamp.

The MFAIC response to a service-side escalation falls into three buckets. The most common is that your file was at the bottom of a batch and is now top of the next one — approval lands inside 24 hours. The second is that the file has a quiet flag we were not informed about — we resolve that with a fresh photo or scan upload at no charge to you, and the new 3-business-day clock starts cleanly. The third, rare, is that the file got wedged between two officers — a manual nudge moves it forward inside 48 hours.

Across all three outcomes, the free resubmission rule still applies. There is no second fee, no penalty form, no fresh start from scratch. The Cambodia eVisa stuck on pending guide for Australians has the deeper version of this escalation flow if you want the wider context, and the resubmission guide walks through what happens if a flag does turn up.

Day 4 is almost always fine — Day 5 is the action line

Walking the four-rung ladder takes about five minutes and resolves the vast majority of Day 4 Cambodia eVisa worries without anyone needing to do anything. Khmer holidays, MRZ flags, weekend overlap, and end-of-day submission rollover account for almost every case. Hold off on any re-submission, refresh the status page no more than twice a day, and if Day 5 passes with nothing, reply on the confirmation thread and let Aussie-timezone support carry it from there. The Do Australians need a Cambodia visa primer covers the upstream eligibility context for first-time applicants who land here mid-application.

Next steps and related reading for Australians: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for Australian citizens as the single canonical reference, skim the FAQ on Cambodia visa eligibility for quick answers, and use our glossary of Cambodia visa terms to decode any acronym in this guide.