Bavet–Moc Bai Border Crossing (Vietnam → Cambodia) for Australians: 2026 Guide

Why the Bavet crossing matters in 2026

Until mid-2025, an Aussie planning an Indochina loop had three overland choices into Cambodia: from Thailand at Poipet, from Vietnam at Bavet, or from Laos at Tropaeng Kreal. Since June 2025, the Thailand option has been off the table — all seven Thai–Cambodian land crossings remain closed with no reopening on the calendar. That has quietly made Bavet the main overland route into Cambodia for the entire backpacker and family-travel demographic out of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

The crossing itself has been running smoothly throughout. Bavet on the Cambodian side, Moc Bai on the Vietnamese side, Highway 1 connecting Saigon to Phnom Penh. Four to six hours on the bus to the border, another two to three hours to the Cambodian capital. The Thailand–Cambodia border closure update has the broader context, and the Vietnam–Cambodia visa combo guide covers the two-visa logistics in detail.

This article is the field-tested version: how the bus journey actually plays out for an Australian passport holder in 2026, which operators are reliable, where Aussies most often trip up, and what to do if something goes sideways at the border. I've crossed Bavet more than forty times since 2017 and the rhythm has changed less than you'd think — but the visa policy around it has changed more than most travel blogs have caught up with.

The Bavet–Moc Bai crossing at a glance

Four operators run the Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh route in 2026. Two are safe Aussie picks, two are cheaper but rougher around the edges. None are bad, exactly — but at the border, the operator's relationship with Cambodian Immigration is the variable that decides whether your bus waits ten minutes or ninety. Here is the honest side-by-side.

Mekong Express

Mekong Express is the operator most Australians end up on, and there's a reason — they've been running the route since the early 2000s, the fleet is genuinely comfortable, and the on-board attendant collects every passenger's passport on the Vietnam side and walks the stack through both immigration desks personally. You stay on the bus for the Vietnamese exit, get off briefly to walk through Cambodian Immigration on foot, then reboard. The whole crossing usually clocks in at 45 to 75 minutes. Departures from the Pham Ngu Lao office in District 1, Saigon, multiple times daily. Book online or at the office the day before.

Giant Ibis

Giant Ibis is the other Aussie-favourite, marketed slightly more towards the Western backpacker market and reliably booked solid in peak season (November through February). Same general experience as Mekong Express — passport-runner system, reclining seats, AC, wifi — at roughly the same price. If Mekong Express is sold out for your date, Giant Ibis is the no-brainer second choice. They run from a small office near Pham Ngu Lao, departing in the early morning to land you in Phnom Penh by mid-afternoon. Both Mekong Express and Giant Ibis accept card payment online; the cheaper operators usually want cash at the office.

The journey: Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh

Most Mekong Express and Giant Ibis services leave Saigon between 6:30am and 8:30am — the early start is deliberate, because Cambodian Immigration at Bavet processes faster before mid-afternoon. Aim for a morning departure, not an overnight; the few overnight services that exist make the crossing slower and lose you a sleep cycle in the process.

The first leg is roughly two and a half hours from central Saigon to the Moc Bai border, through the southern Vietnamese countryside on Highway 1. The bus stops once at a rest area for about twenty minutes — toilet, instant coffee, a bowl of pho if you skipped breakfast. Pay in Vietnamese dong (have small notes — VND 50,000 is plenty for coffee), the rest area does not reliably accept cards.

At Moc Bai, the bus pulls up at the Vietnamese exit gate. On Mekong Express and Giant Ibis, the attendant collects every passenger's passport and the small departure card you completed on the bus. You stay seated. The attendant returns with stamped passports ten to twenty minutes later. This is the Vietnamese exit stamp — auto on bus, no queue for you. On the cheaper operators (Kumho Samco, Sapaco), you sometimes have to get off and queue at the desk yourself; this is the slowest, most error-prone part of the whole journey.

Across no-man's-land, a short walk or shuttle of two to three minutes, you reach Bavet on the Cambodian side. Here you do get off the bus. Hand the Cambodian Immigration officer your printed eVisa PDF (one A4 copy is fine, two is safer) and your passport. The officer reviews the eVisa, stamps the passport with an entry stamp showing the 30-day stay window, and waves you through. No card to fill in for land arrivals — the desk handles entry directly. Total Cambodian-side processing is usually 15 to 30 minutes per bus.

Reboard the bus at the Cambodian Immigration carpark. The remaining leg from Bavet to Phnom Penh is roughly 95 kilometres on a mostly-decent two-lane highway, two to three hours depending on traffic into the capital. One more rest stop, usually with reasonable Khmer food and small-note USD accepted (you'll want a few clean $1, $5, and $10 notes — Cambodia runs on USD at the small-vendor level). Arrival in Phnom Penh is typically a small terminal near the central area; tuk-tuks and PassApp ride-shares are everywhere.

Visa logistics at Bavet: eVisa beats VoA, every time

Cambodia technically offers visa-on-arrival at Bavet, but the operative word is technically. In practice, the booth runs out of physical visa stickers more often than not — sometimes for a single afternoon, sometimes for three days running. When the stickers are out, the booth either turns you back, holds you in a side room for several hours waiting for a fresh batch, or in the worst case sends you back across the border to Vietnam with no visa and no easy return path. None of those scenarios are theoretical; they happen every month. The eVisa vs Visa on Arrival comparison covers the broader trade-off, but for a land crossing the answer is simply: apply for the eVisa.

The Cambodia eVisa for Australians is $80 USD (~$122 AUD) all-in, approved in three business days, and delivered as a printable PDF. No flight booking required, no hotel reservation, no bank statement. Apply online with us at least a week before you fly out of Australia. The Australian application walkthrough covers every field, and the country pillar covers the broader eligibility picture for Aussies.

Print two A4 colour copies of the eVisa PDF. One you hand over at the desk, one stays in the bottom of your daypack as a backup. Cambodian Immigration at Bavet does scan the QR code, but the printed copy is the working document. A phone screen is not accepted at the land border — bring paper. Your passport needs at least six months of validity from the crossing date and at least one clean blank page for the entry stamp.

Carry a small USD cash buffer regardless — say $50 to $100 in clean, undamaged, post-2006 notes — for the rest stop, the tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh, and the first night's incidentals. Cambodian ATMs do work in Phnom Penh but the airport-style fees on Aussie cards are real, and you'll want walking-around money before you find a decent ATM in the morning.

Common mistakes Aussies make at Bavet

After a few hundred Aussie crossings through our desk in the last few years, four mistakes come up over and over. None of them are fatal — the worst case is usually a few hours of delay — but all of them are avoidable.

• Relying on visa-on-arrival at the border. The sticker shortage is real and constant. Apply for the eVisa before you board the bus in Saigon. The $80 USD all-in is cheaper than one extra night in a Phnom Penh hotel if you get turned back.
• No blank passport page. Cambodian Immigration needs at least one clean page for the entry stamp. If your passport is heavily stamped, check before you leave Australia and renew if you're under four pages free.
• Missing the Vietnamese exit stamp. On the cheaper operators that don't collect passports, Aussies sometimes drift off to the toilet or buy a drink and miss the exit queue. The bus will not wait. Stay with the bus group, follow the attendant's instructions, and don't wander.
• Booking the cheapest possible operator to save $5. Sapaco and the smaller operators are fine for hardened backpackers, but the time and stress cost at the border outstrip the saving for most Aussie travellers. Mekong Express or Giant Ibis is worth the extra $3 to $10.

One additional point on timing: the border is open 6:00am to 10:00pm, but Cambodian Immigration's afternoon shift is reliably slower than the morning shift. Buses that hit Bavet after 4pm regularly wait an extra 45 minutes. The morning Saigon departures from Mekong Express and Giant Ibis are scheduled around this — they aim to land you at Bavet around 11am to 1pm, which is the sweet spot.

The return journey: Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City

Going back the other way is structurally similar but the visa logistics flip. The Cambodian exit stamp is free and instant. The Vietnamese entry is what now needs paperwork.

If your Vietnam e-Visa was single-entry and you've already used it, you cannot re-enter Vietnam without applying again. The Vietnam e-Visa Portal is the official route — $25 USD (~$38 AUD) single-entry, three working days. If your trip plan is Vietnam → Cambodia → Vietnam (for instance, flying home from Hanoi), spend the extra $25 USD up front and buy the $50 USD multi-entry version before you leave Australia. The Vietnam–Cambodia visa combo guide breaks the sequencing down in detail.

Both Mekong Express and Giant Ibis run the return journey from Phnom Penh with the same passport-runner system in reverse. Buses depart from Phnom Penh between 6:30am and 8:30am, aim to clear Bavet by 11am to 1pm, and land in Saigon around 3pm to 5pm. The same advice applies: morning departure, paper visa, blank passport page, USD cash buffer, stay with the bus group.

If you're flying out of Saigon the same day, give yourself at least four hours of buffer between the bus arrival and the international departure. Saigon traffic between the central bus terminal and Tan Son Nhat (SGN) can be brutal at peak — 25 minutes off-peak, 90 minutes in heavy traffic. A grab-or-tuk-tuk to the airport is straightforward but not fast.

Final pre-departure checklist for Aussies

If you're crossing in the next month, the Smartraveller advisory for Cambodia and Smartraveller advisory for Vietnam are both worth a five-minute read — particularly during the wet season (May to October), when occasional flooding along Highway 1 can slow the journey. The forward-looking guide on visa-on-arrival airports also covers the air-arrival contingency if you decide last-minute to fly instead.

Pack list for the bus: printed eVisa (two copies), passport, $50 to $100 USD in clean small notes, a few hundred thousand VND for the Vietnamese rest stop, snacks, water bottle, a paperback or downloaded film for the seven hours, a light layer for over-aggressive bus AC, and an Aussie power adapter for charging at the Phnom Penh end. The bus has USB ports but they are slow.

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 at the border for quick answers, and use our glossary of Cambodia visa terms to decode any acronym in this guide.