Three things cross the counter at Cambodia Immigration: your US passport, your eVisa, and your e-Arrival QR code. Here is exactly what the officer wants to see, in what order, and the small mismatches that turn a 30-second stamp into a side-desk detour at KTI.
Three things, in this order: your US passport open to the bio page, your eVisa approval (printed PDF or on your phone), and your e-Arrival Card QR code (screenshot or printed). The officer takes the passport as the anchor, scans the e-Arrival QR code to pull up your arrival declaration, checks your eVisa against both, asks one or two routine questions about your stay, and stamps you in. You do NOT need to show a return flight, a hotel booking, a bank statement, or cash. The whole exchange takes well under a minute when the name and arrival date on your e-Arrival Card match your passport exactly. At Techo International (KTI), all of this happens at one Immigration counter — there is no separate kiosk you scan yourself first.
Americans land at Cambodia Immigration braced for an interrogation and a folder of paperwork. The reality is much lighter: you cross the counter with three things — your US passport, your eVisa, and your e-Arrival Card QR code — and the officer checks all three against each other in under a minute. There is no proof-of-funds moment, no return-ticket demand, no folder to flip through. Knowing exactly what to produce, and in what order, is what keeps your arrival to seconds instead of a fumble at the front of the line.
The reason it feels heavier than it is comes down to confusion between two digital documents. Your eVisa and your e-Arrival Card both arrive as something on your phone — a PDF, a QR code, an email — and Americans mix them up at the worst possible moment, standing at the desk with a line building behind them. They are not the same document, the officer wants both, and the trick is simply having each one ready and knowing which is which before you reach the counter.
This guide is the counter checklist: the three things you hand over, what the officer is actually checking, what is NOT required (which is most of what you were worried about), and the small mismatches that send US travelers to a side desk. It assumes you have already done the paperwork — if you still need the visa itself, our Cambodia visa for US citizens pillar covers requirements, cost, and timing in one place. When you are ready, you can apply for your eVisa and have it back as a printable PDF in 3 business days.
Open to the bio page — it is the anchor everything else is matched against, with 6+ months validity and one blank page.
The QR pulls up the arrival declaration you filed within the 7 days before your flight, matched against the passport.
Same name and passport number, single entry not yet used, still inside its 3-month validity window.
How long you are staying and where — keep replies consistent with what your e-Arrival Card already says.
When the three documents agree, the whole exchange takes well under a minute at one KTI counter.
Here is the full list, in the order the officer at KTI uses it. Three items, all of which fit in one hand. Get them lined up before you reach the desk and the rest is routine.
Your passport is the anchor — everything else is matched against it. Hand it over open to the bio page, the one with your photo. It needs at least 6 months of validity remaining from your date of entry into Cambodia, and at least one full blank page for the entry stamp. The 6-month rule is enforced by the airline at the US gate, not just at the Cambodian border, so a passport expiring too soon gets you stopped before you ever board. If it expires in October 2026 and you arrive in July, you are fine; if it expires in September and you arrive in July, you are not.
This is the document that says you are allowed to enter Cambodia at all. You applied for it weeks ahead, it was approved in 3 business days, and it was delivered to you as a printable PDF by email. Print it and tuck it in your passport, and keep a copy on your phone as backup. The officer wants to see that you hold a valid Tourist or Business eVisa tied to the passport in their hand — same name, same passport number, single entry, valid for 3 months from issue with a 30-day stay.
This is the one Americans forget exists. The e-Arrival Card is a separate, mandatory declaration you file within the 7 days before your flight — 14 fields covering who you are, your flight, where you are staying, and a short customs answer. It produces a QR code, and that QR code is what the officer scans at the counter to pull up your arrival declaration. The eVisa says you may enter; the e-Arrival Card says here is the detail of this specific arrival. No QR code, no clean scan — and that is the most common scramble at the KTI desk.
It helps to know what the officer is looking for, because once you do, the short exchange stops feeling like a test. They are not assessing whether you deserve to visit Cambodia — your approved eVisa already settled that. At the counter, they are confirming that the person in front of them matches the documents, and that the three documents agree with each other.
Notice what is not on that list. There is no question about your bank balance, no request to see a return ticket, no demand for a hotel confirmation number. The officer is doing an identity-and-consistency check, not a means test. The entire job in front of you is to make the three documents agree, then answer plainly. US tourists and business travelers get waved through with a sentence or two — the officer has processed a thousand Americans that week alone.
If you want a sense of the conversation rather than just the documents, our rundown of the questions Cambodia Immigration officers ask Americans covers the handful you might actually hear and how to answer them without overthinking it. The single rule: keep your spoken answers consistent with what your e-Arrival Card says. If the card lists ten days in Phnom Penh, do not say "a month, maybe Siem Reap" when asked — a mismatch between your mouth and your card is what turns a 30-second exchange into a longer one.
Two of your three documents are digital — the eVisa PDF and the e-Arrival QR code — and how you store them is the difference between a clean arrival and a panic at the desk. The rule is simple: have both available offline, in two forms, so nothing depends on a battery or a Wi-Fi signal you do not have yet.
The failure that strands Americans at the counter is not a rejected document — it is a document they cannot produce. A phone that died somewhere over the Pacific. An eVisa PDF sitting in an inbox you assumed you could re-open on arrival, except KTI Wi-Fi is past Immigration and you are not past Immigration yet. A QR code buried under twelve apps you are now scrolling through while the line stares. All of it avoidable.
If you are still deciding how to carry everything, our guide on whether to show your Cambodia eVisa on a phone or print it at the airport weighs both for US travelers — the short answer is do both, because print is the backup that never fails and the phone is the convenience that usually works. Either way, the offline copy is non-negotiable: assume no signal until you are stamped in and through to baggage claim.
This is where most of your pre-trip worry evaporates. The list of things Cambodia Immigration does NOT ask US arrivals to show is longer than the list of things it does. If you have come from a Vietnam or Indonesia arrival, where onward tickets and funds can come up, Cambodia will feel almost suspiciously light.
The reason all of that is missing is structural. Cambodia treats the eVisa fee you already paid as your commitment, and the e-Arrival Card collects the practical arrival detail — flight, address, customs — in the week before you fly. By the time you reach the counter, the system already has what it needs. The officer is just confirming the person matches the paperwork. So leave the folder of printouts at home; three documents is genuinely the whole ask.
One arrival fact worth knowing in 2026: essentially every American now reaches Cambodia by air, because all seven Thailand-Cambodia land borders have been closed since June 2025. That means your three documents get checked at an airport counter — KTI in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap-Angkor (SAI), or Sihanouk (KOS) — and the process is the same at each. Our full Techo International arrival walkthrough maps the gate-to-taxi flow if you want the bigger picture beyond the Immigration desk itself.
Run this before you head to your departure gate in the States, and the Cambodia counter becomes the non-event it should be. Passport: 6 months validity, one blank page, in your carry-on not your checked bag. eVisa: printed and tucked in the passport, plus a copy on your phone. e-Arrival QR code: screenshotted in your camera roll and printed. Name on all three matches exactly, middle name included. Arrival date on the e-Arrival Card reads correctly in day-month-year and matches your ticket. Six checks, two minutes, and nothing to sort at the desk.
The slow-downs at the counter are almost never technical — a QR code is a QR code and the reader is built for it. What sends Americans to a side desk is a data gap the scan exposes. A name filed as "Jon Smith" against a passport that reads "Jonathan Michael Smith." An arrival date typed month-first, US-style, that lands a month off the airline manifest because the form reads day-month-year. Neither costs you your trip — you get directed to an assistance desk to fix it — but both cost you twenty minutes at the end of a twenty-hour journey. The point of getting it right beforehand is to never see that desk.
Remember the order of operations for the whole trip: the eVisa is the big step you do first, weeks ahead — Tourist $80 USD or Business $90 USD, both approved in 3 business days and delivered as a printable PDF by email. The e-Arrival Card is the light step you do last, in the 7 days before you fly, and the QR code it produces is the third document you show at the counter. Get both filed clean and the three-document handover at KTI is the easiest part of your day. When you are ready, apply for your Cambodia eVisa and the printable PDF lands in your inbox.
When you file a verified e-Arrival Card through us for $5 USD, it is checked end-to-end before it reaches Cambodian Immigration — the name spelling against your passport, the flight number against your final leg, and the date format that flags so many Americans. That is the difference between a QR code that scans clean at the counter and one that sends you to a side desk. If a field is off, we catch it before it becomes an arrivals problem, with US-timezone support if you have a question the night before you fly.
Next steps and related reading for US travelers: apply for your Cambodia eVisa if you still need the visa itself, file your verified e-Arrival Card once your flight is locked in, and see how the e-Arrival QR scan works at KTI Immigration so the counter exchange holds no surprises.
Did this guide help you?
اگر آپ کا کمبوڈیا کا سفر 30 دن سے زیادہ ہوگا، تو جس ویزا پر آپ داخل ہوتے ہیں وہ ہر چیز طے کرتا ہے۔ ٹورسٹ eVisa (ٹائپ T) سختی سے 30 دن پر محدود ہے اور اس کی توسیع نہیں کی جا سکتی۔ بزنس eVisa (ٹائپ E) واحد قسم ہے جسے ملک کے اندر بڑھایا جا سکتا ہے — 1، 3، 6، یا 12 ماہ کے لیے۔ یہاں بتایا گیا ہے کہ امریکی اسے کیسے صحیح منتخب کریں اس سے پہلے کہ وہ اڑیں۔
With every Thailand–Cambodia land border still closed, Bavet is now the main overland way into Cambodia from Vietnam. Six hours from Ho Chi Minh City, one printed eVisa, no e-Arrival Card — here is how US citizens actually do it in 2026.
ویتنام پہلے یا کمبوڈیا پہلے؟ امریکیوں کے لیے فیصلہ کن عنصر شاذ و نادر ہی معابد یا ساحل ہوتے ہیں — یہ دو سنگل انٹری ویزوں اور ایک بند سرحد پر انٹری کا حساب ہے۔ یہ 2026 کا ترتیب منصوبہ ہے جو دونوں ٹانگوں کو صاف رکھتا ہے۔
Bangkok in, Siem Reap out — but the land border is closed, so fly between them.
Read the 2026 update →Classic Indochina pairing. Phu Quoc beaches are visa-free for 30 days.
See the combo guide →The overlooked third stop on the Indochina loop.
Plan the Laos route →Stitch all three together and get every visa right before you fly.
Plan the full loop →
