Cambodia Trip Budget for Americans: Where the Visa Fits In

How small the visa is against the rest of the trip

Once you see the entry fees next to the rest of a Cambodia trip, the worry about the visa cost tends to evaporate. The two fees that feel like the scary, official part of the budget are, in practice, a rounding error against flights and accommodation. Here is a rough shape for a 10-day mid-range trip flying from a major US city, built to show proportion rather than to predict your exact spend.

• International round-trip flights from the US: roughly $900 to $1,500 USD, depending on season, routing, and how far ahead you book. This is almost always the single biggest line.
• Accommodation for 10 nights, mid-range: roughly $300 to $700 USD total, with comfortable rooms widely available in the $40-to-$70 USD a night range.
• Food and drink for 10 days: roughly $150 to $400 USD, eating a mix of local spots and the occasional sit-down restaurant.
• In-country transport, tuk-tuks, and a couple of intercity transfers: roughly $80 to $200 USD.
• Temple and site entrance fees, including the Angkor pass: roughly $60 to $130 USD.
• The eVisa plus e-Arrival Card: a fixed $85 USD total — the only line on this list that does not move.

Add the midpoints up and a typical 10-day trip lands somewhere around $1,800 to $2,500 USD all in. Against that, the $85 USD of entry fees is roughly 3 to 6% of the total — and unlike every other line, it is locked. Spend an hour fretting over the visa and you are optimizing the one number that was never going to surprise you. The flights and the hotels are where real money is won or lost.

The point of laying it out this way is not to make the visa feel trivial — it is to put it in proportion so you budget the right things. Settle the fixed $85 USD now, then put your planning energy into the flights and accommodation that actually swing the total. If you are weighing how Cambodia compares to neighbors on the entry-fee side specifically, our comparison of Cambodia visa cost against Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos shows where it sits, and our note on why there are no hidden fees on the Cambodia visa explains why the $85 is genuinely the whole entry number.

What a day on the ground actually costs

Cambodia is one of the better-value destinations in Southeast Asia for an American, and the daily spend reflects it. What you burn through in a day depends almost entirely on how you choose to travel, not on prices being unpredictable. Three rough tiers cover most travelers.

A budget traveler — guesthouse rooms, street food and local markets, tuk-tuks and shared transport — runs comfortably on $40 to $55 USD a day. A mid-range traveler with a nice private room, a mix of casual and sit-down meals, the occasional private driver, and full site access sits around $70 to $120 USD a day. A traveler leaning toward comfort — boutique hotels, guided tours, finer dining, domestic flights between cities — climbs to $150 USD a day and up. None of these tiers are exotic; they are the same dials you adjust on any trip.

A few specific costs are worth flagging because Americans ask about them most. A three-day Angkor Archaeological Park pass is a meaningful one-time line of around $62 USD, well worth budgeting separately. Domestic flights between Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and the coast are cheap by US standards but add up if you hop around. SIM cards and data are inexpensive. Tipping is modest and discretionary. The unglamorous truth is that food and accommodation are the two dials that move your daily number the most.

Against all of that daily spending, the entry fees you settled weeks earlier barely register. The whole $85 USD of eVisa and e-Arrival is roughly one mid-range day on the ground — paid once, before you leave home, never thought about again. That is exactly why we tell American travelers to lock the entry fees first and budget the variable spend second. If you are traveling as a family and need to multiply the visa line, our guide to the Cambodia visa cost for families and children does the per-traveler math.

Why a dollar economy makes the math easier

Here is the part that makes Cambodia unusually friendly to an American budget: the country runs largely on US dollars day to day. Hotels quote in dollars, restaurants take dollars, tour operators price in dollars, and most ATMs dispense dollars. The Cambodian riel exists and you will get it as small change, but the dollar is the working currency for almost anything a traveler buys. For you, that removes the single most annoying source of budget guesswork — the running mental conversion you do in countries on an unfamiliar currency.

It also means your visa and e-Arrival fees, your hotel, your tuk-tuk, and your dinner are all denominated in the same unit you already think in. There is no foreign-exchange surprise between what you budgeted and what you spend, no wondering whether the price on the menu is a good deal once converted. Your budget in dollars is your spend in dollars. The main thing to watch is your own bank: a foreign-transaction fee on your card or a poor ATM rate is the one place a few percent can quietly leak out, and that is on your card issuer, not on Cambodia.

Because the entry fees are billed in US dollars too, there is nothing waiting at the airport in local currency — you pay the $80 USD eVisa and the $5 USD e-Arrival before you fly and arrival is a non-event at the desk. Carry a small amount of cash for tuk-tuks and markets, lean on a card with no foreign-transaction fee for larger spends, and your real-world cost will track your budget closely.

Next steps and related reading for Americans: apply for your Cambodia eVisa to lock the fixed line at $80 USD, see the full Cambodia visa cost for US citizens to budget the entry fees in detail, and read the Tourist eVisa price breakdown for US citizens so both fixed lines are settled before you book the rest of the trip.