Cambodia Business Meeting Trip for Australians: 2026 Short-Stay Guide (3-7 Days)

The 3-day Cambodia business trip checklist (day-14 to day-3)

The mechanics of a clean 3-day business trip into Cambodia are not complicated, but they reward sequencing. Here is the working checklist we hand Aussie executives flying in for short meeting trips. The dates are calendar countdowns from the day of your flight.

• Day-14 (two weeks out): lodge the Business eVisa from Australia. $90 USD (~$137 AUD), 3 business days. Online form, ten minutes, passport + photo + email + payment. No sponsor letter, no return flight, no hotel booking, no bank statement required at the application stage.
• Day-11 to day-7: eVisa approval lands in your inbox as a printable PDF. Save a copy to your phone, save another to a cloud drive, print two A4 copies for the flight folder (one for entry, one for exit). Check passport validity — at least 6 months from your arrival date, at least one full blank page.
• Day-7 (one week out): file the e-Arrival Card. Separate from the eVisa, mandatory for every air arrival, $5 USD (~$7.50 AUD) upstream. The QR code lives on your phone; screenshot it for offline access.
• Day-3 (final preparation): confirm hotel booking (BKK1 or Riverside for Phnom Penh meetings, walking-distance to your client's office is the standard pick). Confirm meeting agenda in writing with hosts. Set up phone roaming or buy a local Smart or Cellcard SIM at the airport on arrival.
• Day-0 (flight day): carry the printed Business eVisa PDF, the e-Arrival QR on your phone, your Australian passport, and one printed copy of the meeting agenda or invitation in case the Immigration officer asks. Smart-casual at the desk; honest answer to 'purpose of visit'.
• Day 1–3 (in-country): meetings during business hours, hotel base, dinner with hosts, taxi to office (Grab or PassApp are the local rideshare apps). Return ticket via Singapore, Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur — direct Sydney-Phnom Penh flights are still rare in mid-2026.

The two corners most often cut: people skip the e-Arrival Card (thinking the eVisa covers it — it doesn't), and people forget to print two paper copies of the eVisa PDF (digital-only sometimes gets you waved through, sometimes doesn't). Both fixes are five-minute jobs done a week ahead. The Australian application walkthrough has the click-by-click for the Business eVisa form if you have not lodged one before.

Expensing the visa fee through your corporate travel policy

The $80 USD (~$122 AUD) Tourist or $90 USD (~$137 AUD) Business eVisa fee is reimbursable under almost every Australian corporate travel policy we have ever seen. ASX-listed firms, mid-market consultancies, big-four professional services, NGOs, and federal government departments all routinely accept the eVisa fee as a standard travel expense, in the same line-item bucket as airport transfers, departure taxes, or ESTA-style entry permits for other destinations. The AUD-equivalent line on your card statement is the receipt — Cambodian eVisa charges show up cleanly as a single transaction in USD, with the AUD conversion alongside.

If your corporate policy distinguishes between visa classes — some policies do — the Business eVisa is straightforwardly easier to expense than the Tourist for a business trip. Submitting a Tourist eVisa receipt for a meeting trip can occasionally raise an internal-audit query from a sharp travel manager, who reasonably asks why a leisure visa was used for a business purpose. The Business eVisa receipt closes that loop before it opens. We have seen exactly one corporate travel policy in the past three years actively cap visa reimbursement at the Tourist class price — and that firm changed its policy after the audit team pushed back.

Practical expensing tips. Capture the email confirmation from the eVisa application as a PDF — it carries the application reference, the USD charge, and the date. The card statement entry is the second piece of evidence. Most expense systems will accept either alone; bundling both is the gold standard. Add the eVisa printout itself if your firm wants proof of trip purpose. The Cambodia visa cost guide for Australians has the full upfront-vs-extension cost breakdown if you need to brief a colleague on which fees the firm should expect to reimburse.

What to do if your meeting extends mid-trip

The scenario plays out every few weeks at the short-stay desk. An Aussie executive flies in for what was meant to be a 4-day deal-closing trip, the contract slips, the counterparty asks for another week on the ground, and suddenly the trip is heading toward 10 days, 20 days, 35 days. Two questions then matter: can you stay, and on what visa?

The first thing to know is that the Tourist eVisa cannot be extended in-country. The old auto-extension flow ended in November 2025, and there is no longer any legal path to stretch a 30-day Tourist stay beyond day 30. If you entered on the Tourist by default and your trip is now headed past 30 days, your options are to leave Cambodia before day 30 and re-enter on a fresh Business eVisa, or to overstay and pay the $10 USD (~$15 AUD) per-day penalty at the airport on exit (which we strongly do not recommend — overstay marks affect future visa applications).

The second thing to know is that the Business eVisa CAN be extended in-country. A 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month extension is available through a Cambodian immigration agent in Phnom Penh, takes 7–14 business days to process, and rolls your stay forward smoothly. The 1-month extension is the natural pick for a trip that has run a fortnight over plan. Start the paperwork at least two weeks before your initial 30-day stay expires — the buffer matters.

Class conversion inside Cambodia is not supported. If you entered on a Tourist eVisa and want to switch to Business mid-trip, the only clean path is to exit (a weekend hop to Bangkok or Singapore works) and re-enter on a fresh Business eVisa. Most Aussies in this shape lodge the new Business eVisa from the lounge at Suvarnabhumi or Changi while waiting for the return flight — three business days still applies, so a Friday application is back in your inbox by Wednesday.

The other corner that catches Aussies on extending trips: the e-Arrival Card resets on every air entry. If you exit and re-enter on a fresh Business eVisa, you file a fresh e-Arrival Card 7 days before the new flight in. The card is not a multi-entry product.

If your trip is realistically heading past 30 days from the outset, lodge the Business eVisa before you fly — the in-country extension flow exists precisely for trips that grow. Our Cambodia Business visa extensions guide for Australians covers the extension mechanics end-to-end, the Cambodia digital nomad visa guide covers the same Business-plus-extension stack for longer-duration remote work, and the Cambodia eVisa payment troubleshooting guide is the right reference if the application card declines mid-trip.

Arrival at KTI and onward to your meeting

Most Aussie business travellers in 2026 land at Techo International Airport (KTI), the new Phnom Penh gateway that replaced Pochentong in late 2025. KTI is roughly 30km south of central Phnom Penh, a 35–55 minute drive depending on traffic, and the standard taxi or rideshare fare into the BKK1 business district sits around $20–30 USD (~$30–46 AUD). Grab and PassApp both operate from the arrivals concourse — PassApp tends to be cheaper, Grab tends to have shorter wait times during peak arrivals.

At the immigration desk, the officer will scan your passport, scan the e-Arrival QR from your phone, and check the printed Business eVisa PDF you carry. Queue time at KTI is typically 10–20 minutes through the manual desk, faster through the automated e-gate if you have biometric clearance. The officer may casually ask the purpose of your visit — "business meetings with a Phnom Penh client" or "sponsored conference at the Sofitel" are standard answers and match cleanly to the Business eVisa in your passport.

Hotel pick for short business trips: most Aussie executives stay in BKK1 (the standard business district), Riverside (closer to government meetings), or in one of the international chains near the Independence Monument. Walking distance to your client's office matters more than star rating for a 3-day trip — Phnom Penh traffic between 8am and 10am makes a 2km drive into a 35-minute trip more often than not. The Cambodia airports KTI / SAI / KOS guide for Australians covers each gateway, transfer options, and the realistic timing between landing and your first morning meeting.

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