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Move & retire

Cambodia

Renewable forever, with no income test — and nothing permanent at the end of it.

4/4
ingredients confirmed
Every ingredient this page asks for has a figure and a source.
Living
~$1,400/mo
Couple, all in. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.
Safety
Mid
Ninety-sixth of 163, and one of the largest deteriorations in this edition after the 2025 border fighting with Thailand
Residency
Extend forever, own nothing
Healthcare
Cheap and quick until it is serious, then it is Bangkok
Out-of-pocket spending is 60.6% of current health expenditure here (World Bank, 2023, CC BY 4.0). Read it with care: the measure counts only what insured people pay — not premiums, and not the uninsured — which is why the United States comes out at 10.9%, ahead of most countries on this site.

More is being checked.

Where these figures came from

One row per ingredient. Open any of them for the source, how far we trust it, and when we last checked.

Living~$1,400/mo

Pathoff judgement directed by evidence, not computed from it: the country’s position comes from the World Bank household consumption price level for 2024 (0.363 of the United States, CC BY 4.0 — the ICP benchmark carried forward annually by the World Bank’s own method); the US reference budget is ours. See the Pathoff method, section 12.

Couple, all in. Compared at country level, so capital cities and large metros run higher. The price level behind it prices the basket residents buy, and a foreign renter cannot reach the cheap end of local housing — poorer countries may still sit too low here.

Confidence
made by us from the source
SafetyMid

Global Peace Index 2026: rank 96 of 163, score 2.075. Converted by the Pathoff GPI formula (GPI in lib/scoring.ts)

Ninety-sixth of 163, and one of the largest deteriorations in this edition after the 2025 border fighting with Thailand

Confidence
made by us from the source
ResidencyExtend forever, own nothing

Pathoff outcome rubric (the Pathoff method, section 10-4), residency band "A route with conditions you can meet": The ordinary business visa extension is renewable indefinitely with no income test, and the retirement extension is published for applicants over 55 at about $300 a year. Mid-band, not higher, because none of it is residence in a legal sense — there is no permanent residence at the end of it, and what is renewed each year is permission to stay a little longer.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09
HealthcareCheap and quick until it is serious, then it is Bangkok

Pathoff healthcare rubric (the Pathoff method, section 13-2), band "You buy your own, and it is affordable": There is no public system a foreign resident can join; private clinics in Phnom Penh are inexpensive and same-day for ordinary care. Mid-band and no higher because this is the band’s textbook case — anything complex, and often anything surgical, means an evacuation to Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City.

Out-of-pocket spending is 60.6% of current health expenditure here (World Bank, 2023, CC BY 4.0). Read it with care: the measure counts only what insured people pay — not premiums, and not the uninsured — which is why the United States comes out at 10.9%, ahead of most countries on this site.

Confidence
made by us from the source
Rule
No change known to us
Last checked
2026-09

What it is like here

No country on this site makes staying easier. An ordinary business visa extends for twelve months at a time, indefinitely, with no income requirement and no employer, for a few hundred dollars; the retirement extension does the same for anyone over 55. Two things to weigh against that: none of it ever becomes permanent, and serious illness means a flight to Bangkok.

How the process works

1

Enter on an ordinary (E) visa

Ask for the ordinary visa, not the tourist one; only the ordinary visa extends.

⏱ 1 day
2

Take a twelve-month extension

A few hundred dollars, about a week, and repeatable without limit.

⏱ 1 week
3

Buy evacuation cover, not just health cover

The realistic plan for a serious illness is a flight, so insure for the flight.

⏱ 1 week

Where people settle

Phnom Penh
The best clinics in the country, and an hour from Bangkok
Siem Reap
Quieter and cheaper, with the tourism economy attached
Kampot / Kep
The river and the coast, and very little medicine

Open any ingredient above to see where its figure came from, how far we trust it and when we last checked. Nothing here is a substitute for the official source. Last reviewed 2026-09-04.

Photograph of Cambodia by Jakub Hałun, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.