Cambodia Visa on Arrival for Aussie Families with Kids: The 2026 Guide to Photos, Fees and Consent Letters

Photos for each child: the chemist plan before flying

Every Australian child travelling on VoA needs their own passport-size photo handed to the booth officer with the application form — the spec is 35x45mm equivalent, plain white background, recent (within 6 months), face fully visible. There is an on-the-spot photo machine near the booth at each airport, but the camera is fixed at adult head height, costs $2 USD (~$3 AUD) per attempt, and is sometimes out of service. Wrangling a sleepy six-year-old in front of that machine is the part Aussie parents tell us they will never repeat.

The plan we recommend instead is doing the photos at an Australian chemist before flying. Chemist Warehouse, Priceline and Australia Post each run a passport photo service at most branches for around $15-20 AUD for a set of four prints. The technician will support a small child's head against the plain backdrop, and the print quality is consistent first time. Two prints per child go in the family envelope alongside the USD cash — one for the booth, one as a spare in case the officer rejects the first.

Cambodian photo rules and small children

Cambodian Immigration is genuinely lenient on the closed-mouth and eyes-open rule for infants and toddlers — the booth officer is not going to refuse a photo because a six-month-old has their mouth slightly open. The strict bits are the plain white background, the 35x45mm size, the recency, and the absence of glasses, hats or filters. A chemist photo set covers all of those without thinking. The on-arrival machine is the hardest route for under-fives in practice.

The dedicated VoA photo-on-arrival walkthrough covers the machine spec, the booth rejection reasons, and the airport-by-airport reliability of the photo machine if you do skip the chemist step. The chemist photo guide covers the Australian branch shortlist and how the Cambodian spec compares to the Australian passport brief.

Named guardians and the witnessed consent letter rule

Cambodian Immigration applies a long-standing rule that children under 18 must enter the country with their named guardian on the application — typically one parent or a legal guardian. The VoA form has a guardian field for each minor, and the booth officer can ask for proof of the relationship if the family group at the desk does not match. A standard Aussie two-parent family travelling together rarely sees any friction, but the rule is the one to know if your family circumstances are not the standard pattern.

When a witnessed consent letter helps

• Only one parent is travelling with the child while the other stays in Australia — the non-travelling parent should sign a witnessed consent letter so the booth officer has documentary backing.
• Separated or divorced parents where custody is shared and only one parent is on the trip — the other parent's witnessed consent letter is genuinely worth carrying.
• Grandparents, aunts, uncles or family friends travelling with the child without either parent — the named legal guardian should sign a witnessed consent letter, and bringing a copy of the child's birth certificate is recommended.
• Single-parent families where the other parent is deceased or has no contact — a brief explanatory letter plus the child's birth certificate is enough; nothing further is needed.
• Step-parent travelling without the biological parent — treat as the same situation as a non-parent guardian and carry a witnessed consent letter.

The witnessed consent letter is not a formal Cambodian government template. A plain-English letter naming the child, the trip, the dates, the travelling parent or guardian, and signed by the non-travelling parent in front of a Justice of the Peace or another authorised Australian witness is sufficient. Most Aussie parents we work with print two copies, keep one with the family envelope and one in a separate bag in case the booth wants to retain a copy.

One e-Arrival Card per child, no exceptions

The Cambodian e-Arrival Card is a separate digital form from the VoA, and it applies to every air arrival into the country in 2026 — adult, child, infant. The card has 14 fields, the submission window is the 7 days before flying, and the fee is $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD) verified through us. There is no shared family card. A family of four submits four cards, each tied to its own passport number, regardless of whether the family is going eVisa or VoA at the booth.

The practical workflow Aussie parents tell us works best is a single sit-down session at home roughly 5 days before flying. One adult opens a fresh browser tab per family member, fills the 14 fields each, and submits them in batch. The QR code response per card needs saving to phone wallet or print, since the booth officer scans each one. The most common mistake we see is parents trying to submit a single card for the family — the system rejects this immediately because the passport number field is unique per submission.

The 14-fields walkthrough and the couples-and-family shared-fill workflow cover the field-by-field detail, the QR saving rule, and the order most Aussie families find easiest to work through. Both guides assume one card per person, which is the rule.

Why the eVisa is the calmer route for Aussie families

For solo travellers the trade-off between eVisa and VoA is roughly even — the eVisa costs $80 USD (~$122 AUD) all-in versus $30 USD (~$46 AUD) cash at the booth, but the eVisa skips the airport queue and arrives Approved in 3 business days, Delivered as a printable PDF by email. For families the maths tilts heavily toward the eVisa, because the queue time at the booth multiplies with each child while the eVisa workload at home stays roughly fixed.

The Aussie family VoA checklist before flying

Run this checklist a fortnight before flying and the VoA family workflow becomes a non-event. The eVisa route makes most of it disappear, but if you are committed to VoA, this is the prep that keeps the booth queue calm with kids in tow.

• Confirm every child has their own current Australian passport with at least 6 months validity after the intended departure date from Cambodia. Renew with the DFAT child-passport service 8 weeks ahead of school-holiday weeks.
• Take a passport photo set of four per child at Chemist Warehouse, Priceline or Australia Post — $15-20 AUD per child for the set. Ask for the international 35x45mm size.
• Withdraw enough USD cash at an Australian bank for the full family booth fee — for a family of four that is around $120 USD (~$184 AUD), best held in a mix of small clean notes. Crisp, no tears, no marker pen, no folds.
• Prepare the witnessed consent letter if only one parent is travelling, or if a non-parent guardian is travelling with the child. One Justice of the Peace appointment covers the whole family.
• Pre-fill the VoA paper application per child on the plane — name, passport number, flight number, hotel address, guardian name. Attach one photo per form.
• Submit one e-Arrival Card per child inside the 7-day window before flying. Save each QR code to phone wallet or print. 14 fields each, $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD) verified through us per card.
• Carry a printed copy of every child's birth certificate in the family envelope if any guardianship complication applies. Plain colour photocopy is fine.
• Consider switching to the Cambodia eVisa for the whole family at $80 USD (~$122 AUD) per person — Approved in 3 business days, Delivered as a printable PDF by email, no booth queue with the kids.

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