Cambodia VoA Is Cash-Only USD: The Aussie Guide to AUD-to-USD Exchange Before You Fly

Where Aussies actually buy USD before flying in 2026

Sourcing $40–$50 USD in Australia is a five-minute job if you start a week before flying. The trick is to pre-order through your home bank rather than walking up to a counter on the day. Pre-orders use the bank's wholesale AUD/USD rate, while walk-up counters and airport kiosks layer a retail margin on top. The difference is real money on a $40 USD purchase — you pay roughly $61 AUD with a pre-order and $66–$68 AUD with an airport walk-up.

The four major banks — pre-order, branch collection

• ANZ — Foreign cash order via mobile banking or the branch. 24-48 hour turnaround, collection at your nominated branch. AUD/USD margin sits around 2.5-3.0% over spot in 2026. Notes come in $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 — request small denominations specifically.
• Commonwealth Bank — Order online, collect in branch. Same 24-48 hour turnaround, similar 2.5-3.5% margin. The CBA app lets you check the live AUD/USD purchase rate before you commit.
• Westpac — Branch order with similar margin. Some Westpac branches have shifted to a Travelex-fulfilled model where the margin matches Travelex retail. Ask before you commit.
• NAB — Order through NAB Travel or in branch. Margin around 3.0-3.5% over spot. NAB also offers a multi-currency travel card, but the card itself is not useful for the VoA — only the cash component is.

Travelex and airport currency-exchange myth-busting

Travelex branches in CBDs and shopping centres typically charge 4-5% over spot. Travelex airport counters at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth charge 5-7% over spot — sometimes more during peak holiday weeks. The 'no commission' sign at the airport kiosk is technically true and operationally meaningless; the margin is built into the buy rate, not added as a separate fee. A $40 USD purchase at an airport Travelex in 2026 costs around $66-$68 AUD. The same purchase pre-ordered through CBA a week earlier costs around $61 AUD.

For a deeper read on the AUD-to-USD margin and how it shows up across the whole Cambodia trip — not just the VoA — the dedicated AUD conversion guide covers card statements, dynamic-currency-conversion traps, and what Aussies actually pay across a 14-day itinerary.

AUD/USD in 2026: what $40 USD actually costs an Aussie

The Australian dollar has traded in a 1.52-1.55 band against the US dollar through the first half of 2026, with the mid-point around 1.535. That means each $1 USD costs roughly $1.53-$1.55 AUD before any retail margin. For a $40 USD VoA budget — enough for the $30 (~$46 AUD) fee plus a buffer — the table below shows what you actually pay across the common sourcing channels.

The honest takeaway: the difference between the best and worst USD-cash channels is around $5-7 AUD on a $40 purchase. That is not enormous in isolation, but it is the gap between a relaxed pre-flight stop at your branch and a rushed airport-kiosk queue with a worse rate. The bigger story is the 30-60 minute VoA queue on arrival — which the eVisa skips entirely — rather than the FX margin itself.

Why the eVisa quietly sidesteps the cash exercise

The Cambodia eVisa is billed in AUD at checkout — Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal all work — at a fixed $80 USD (~$122 AUD) all-in. No USD-cash sourcing, no airport ATM round trip, no note-quality refusals. Approved in 3 business days, delivered as a printable PDF by email, and walking straight to the e-gate lane at KTI, SAI and KOS on arrival.

The headline price gap — $30 (~$46 AUD) versus $80 (~$122 AUD) — is real, but the operational gap closes faster than most Aussies expect. Pre-ordering USD costs roughly $63-64 AUD at a bank, the booth queue adds 30-60 minutes after a long flight, and the on-arrival photo and unofficial-tip layers add a further $5-10 USD on a bad day. The eVisa is also checked end-to-end before it reaches Immigration, which means a free resubmission if any field needs a correction rather than a queue reset at the booth.

If you are landing within 72 hours and the eVisa window is too tight, the cash-USD prep above is the right call. Otherwise the eVisa application is a faster route once the FX, queue, and photo costs are added up honestly. The Australian application walkthrough covers every field on the eVisa form, and the broader country guide covers eligibility.

The Aussie cash-prep checklist before flying

Run this checklist a week before flying and the VoA booth becomes a non-issue. None of the steps takes more than ten minutes, and the worst case is one walk-in trip to your bank branch.

• Order $40-$50 USD through your home bank's foreign-cash service (ANZ, CBA, Westpac, NAB). Specify $5, $10 and $20 denominations — not $50s or $100s. Pre-orders take 24-48 hours and collection is at your nominated branch.
• Inspect the notes on collection. Reject any with ink marks, tears, fold creases through the serial number, or a series date earlier than 2006. The teller will swap them on the spot.
• Store the cash in a clean envelope or zip-lock inside your carry-on. Do not bury it in a wallet that has been carrying $5 notes for six months — those notes will look worn by the time you reach Phnom Penh.
• Pre-fill the VoA paper application on the plane. The form is available on the racks at the booth but filling one out in the queue costs ten to fifteen minutes.
• Bring two physical passport photos at 4×6 cm with a white background. The booth's on-the-spot photo service exists but costs ~$2 USD (~$3 AUD) and adds twenty minutes to your day.
• Submit your e-Arrival Card inside the 7-day window before flying. The 14-field form is mandatory for every air arrival regardless of whether you go eVisa or VoA, and Immigration checks the QR code at a separate desk after the visa booth.

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