Do You Show Your Cambodia eVisa on Your Phone or Print It at the Airport?

Why the answer is almost always "carry both"

If both formats are accepted, the question stops being "which one" and becomes "what happens when my chosen one fails." That is the framing that matters, because the failures are mundane and common — not edge cases.

• Dead battery. A long-haul flight, a layover, and a morning of photos can leave your phone near empty exactly when you reach Immigration. A printed page does not care about your battery.
• Cracked or unresponsive screen. Phones get dropped in transit. A spiderwebbed screen that will not register a swipe cannot display your eVisa, and the desk is not where you want to discover that.
• No signal or dead Wi-Fi. If your eVisa lives in an email you never downloaded, you need a connection to open it. KTI Wi-Fi is not guaranteed, and your US carrier may not have data live yet on arrival.
• A phone that gets taken or lost. Rare, but it happens in transit. If the only copy of your eVisa was on a phone that is now gone, a printout in your bag is the difference between a calm arrival and a scramble.
• An officer who simply prefers paper. Most are happy with a screen, but handing over a clean printed page is never the wrong move, and it ends the interaction faster on a busy morning.

Carrying both costs you one sheet of paper and the 30 seconds it takes to save a PDF offline. There is no downside and a long list of small disasters it quietly prevents. If you want the deeper case for the paper side specifically — and whether a print is ever strictly required — our explainer on whether you have to print the Cambodia eVisa for the airport covers it in full.

There is also a middle path worth knowing about: a screenshot of the full eVisa page saved to your photo library, which works offline even when the email will not load. It is not a replacement for a printout, but it is a strong second layer on the phone side — and having it ready matters most when the line is long and the officer wants the page up fast. Our read on the KTI Immigration wait time shows when the desk gets busiest, so you know when speed at the front of the queue actually counts.

How to set up each format so it actually works

Carrying both only helps if each copy is set up right. A phone copy that needs Wi-Fi to open and a printout of just the QR code are two ways to carry the eVisa and still get stuck. Here is the five-minute setup that makes both copies reliable before you leave home.

The phone copy: save it offline

When your approval email arrives, open the PDF and save it to your device, not just to the email. On an iPhone, open the PDF and use Save to Files, or share it into your Books or photo library. On Android, download the PDF and confirm it is in your Files or Downloads, not only sitting in Gmail. Then turn on airplane mode and check you can still open it. If it opens with no signal, you are set. As a second layer, take a screenshot of the full eVisa page so it lives in your camera roll, which is the fastest thing to pull up at the desk.

The print copy: print the whole page

Print the entire eVisa PDF on a single sheet of standard paper — black and white is fine, Cambodian Immigration does not need color. The whole page matters: your name, passport number, visa type, validity dates, and the QR code all need to be legible. Do not print a phone photo of just the QR; print the actual PDF. Fold it once and keep it with your passport, not buried in checked baggage, so it is in your hand when you reach the desk.

Battery and charging reality

If you are leaning on the phone copy, treat your battery like a document too. Land with charge to spare by topping up on the plane or in the layover, and carry a small power bank in your personal item. American travelers often arrive at KTI after 20-plus hours of travel with a phone that has been working hard the whole way — the printout exists for exactly that arrival.

Where the eVisa and the e-Arrival QR fit at KTI

One reason the phone-or-print question gets tangled is that two different QR codes are in play at KTI, and travelers mix them up. The eVisa and the e-Arrival Card are separate documents, checked at separate points, and knowing which is which removes most of the confusion at the airport.

The e-Arrival Card comes first. It is a mandatory arrival declaration of 14 fields that you file within the 7 days before your flight, and submitting it returns a QR code. That e-Arrival QR is the very first thing scanned at KTI, at a kiosk before you reach the Immigration desk. It is almost always shown on the phone, because you only just received it and there is rarely time to print — though a screenshot of the confirmation is still smart insurance.

1. 1
   Save the eVisa offline

   Once the eVisa PDF is approved in 3 business days and emailed to you, save it to your device and confirm it opens in airplane mode.

2. 2
   Print one backup copy

   Print the entire eVisa page on a single sheet — name, passport number, visa type, validity dates, and QR — and fold it with your passport.

3. 3
   File the e-Arrival Card

   Within the 7 days before arrival, submit the 14-field e-Arrival Card ($5 USD) and keep its returned QR ready on your phone.

4. 4
   Scan the e-Arrival QR at the kiosk

   At KTI, the e-Arrival QR is the first thing scanned, at a kiosk before you reach the Immigration desk.

5. 5
   Show the eVisa at Immigration

   At the desk the officer checks your passport and full eVisa together, on phone or paper — whichever you choose is accepted.

The eVisa comes second, at the Immigration desk itself, and that is the document this guide is about — the one where phone or print is genuinely your call. The officer there checks your passport and your eVisa together. To see the full sequence and the order each scan happens, our Techo airport arrival walkthrough takes you gate to taxi step by step.

Practically, that means you may end up showing your phone for the e-Arrival QR at the kiosk and then your printout for the eVisa at the desk a minute later — and that is completely normal. Keep the e-Arrival screenshot easy to reach for the kiosk, and keep your eVisa printout folded with your passport for the desk. Two checks, two documents, two formats if you like. No conflict.

One more thing that has nothing to do with format but trips Americans up at the same desk: the tourist visa auto-extension ended in November 2025, so your 30-day single-entry stay is firm with no automatic grace period. And do not plan a land crossing as a fallback — all seven Thailand–Cambodia land borders have been closed since June 2025, so flying into KTI is the route in.