Residency Through Property in Cambodia: Does Buying Grant Status?

In short: No. Buying an apartment or a villa in Cambodia does not in itself grant either a residence permit or citizenship — a separate "residence permit card" does not exist in the country at all. Long-term residence rests on the Type E visa, which a foreigner extends for 12 months at a time (the ER or EB subclass, roughly $290 a year), or on the CM2H programme — a 10-year visa with an investment or financial condition of around $100,000 (the programme's parameters are not officially confirmed — see below).

This material is for information only and is not investment, tax or legal advice. The data is current as of July 2026; check fees and programme terms at immigration.gov.kh and evisa.gov.kh, and have your transaction handled by a licensed lawyer.

Ownership and status are two separate tracks

The ownership track. The 2001 Land Law (Art. 8): only Khmer individuals and legal entities hold the right of ownership of land; the basis for this is Art. 44 of the 1993 Constitution. The Law on Providing Foreigners with Ownership Rights in Private Units of Co-Owned Buildings (24 May 2010) allows a foreigner to own a condominium apartment — that is what strata title is.

The stay track. Visas are issued by the General Department of Immigration together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the evisa.gov.kh portal). Neither of these laws contains any provision giving an owner a right of entry or an extension of status.

Which visas a buyer can actually obtain

There is no formal residence-permit document in Cambodia. Long-term status means a Type E visa, extended annually into one of its subclasses.

Type	Who it suits	Duration	Indicative cost
Type T (Tourist)	tourists	30 days + a 30-day extension	not suitable for living
Type E (Ordinary)	the basis for long-term residence	30-day entry, then extensions	~$35 on arrival
EB (Employment/Business)	those working or running a business	1/3/6/12 months (6 and 12 are multiple-entry)	12 months ~$290 + work permit $100–190/year
ER (Retirement)	those living on passive income	12 months, multiple-entry	~$290/year
CM2H	investors who need long-term status	10 years	a condition of around $100,000

There are also EG (for job seekers) and ES (for students) — neither has anything to do with buying property. Interim Type E extensions cost roughly $45–50 for one month, $90 for three and $170–180 for six with multiple entry.

The logic for an investor is simple: if you do not work in Cambodia, what you need is ER. If you run a business, you need the "company + EB + work permit" combination.

CM2H: the closest thing to a golden visa, but not a "visa for an apartment"

Cambodia My Second Home is an official programme modelled on Malaysia's MM2H: a 10-year visa with no restrictions on entry and exit, a route to a passport after 5 years (the only path to applying for citizenship within the programme) and a condition of around $100,000 — reportedly either a deposit or an investment.

The caveat sellers rarely make: the exact amount, the form of the contribution and whether buying an apartment counts towards it are all flagged as unconfirmed in our database. The claim "buy a unit for $100,000 and get a ten-year visa" is an assumption, not a verified condition of the programme.

There is no separate "investor visa" in Cambodia's classification: a QIP through the CDC under the 2021 Law on Investment gives tax incentives to investment projects (large investments, development), not status to someone who buys an apartment.

What a foreigner can buy: three different instruments

These are constantly confused, although legally they are different things — and none of them affects your visa:

1. A condominium apartment — strata title, freehold

From the second floor upwards only: the ground floor and basement levels are not available to foreigners (Art. 6).
The foreign share in a building is capped at 70% of the floor area of the private units (Sub-Decree No. 82 of 2011).
Ownership is prohibited within 30 km of land borders — except in SEZs and "important urban zones".
The right arises only after registration in the cadastre; a transaction in breach of Art. 6 is void (Art. 11).

2. Leasing — leasehold and perpetual lease

Civil Code (Arts. 244–247): not less than 15 and not more than 50 years, plus an extension of up to another 50. Villas and land are structured as 50 + 50 years — stronger than the Thai standard of 30. The downside: the right is not perpetual, and as the term burns down the resale price falls.

3. A company or a trust

An enterprise in which Khmer participants hold at least 51% is treated as Cambodian and may own land (Art. 9) — but in that structure the land is controlled by the local partner, and registering it to an unfamiliar private individual is considered one of the market's principal red flags. A more transparent alternative is a Cambodian Trust under the 2019 law: trusts are licensed and registered with the Trust Regulator under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. A foreigner who falsifies nationality in order to own land, by contrast, is punishable under Art. 251, and the property is confiscated by the state without compensation.

Five misconceptions that cost people money

"Buy an apartment — get citizenship." Citizenship is not granted directly for buying property — no law contains any provision linking a transaction to status. The route to permanent residence and a passport runs through separate programmes (CM2H, naturalisation), not through buying an apartment.
"Freehold is the same thing as residency." Freehold is a property right over a unit recorded in the cadastre. Your right to be in the country ends on the date your visa expires.
"The developer gives you a visa, so that's a residence permit." Megakim World Corporation's loyalty programme does indeed provide a visa, a work permit and an ABA Bank account with a purchase: 1BR — for a year, 2BR — for two, 3BR — for three (this is a developer's promotion: verify its contents and duration before the deal). But those are fees paid by the developer, not a right of residence.
"A long visa means tax silence." Rather the opposite: 183 days or more in a calendar year make you a tax resident (Law on Taxation, Art. 3), and a resident is taxed on income from both Cambodian and foreign sources (Art. 2).
"GRR of 8% for ten years." No such condition exists. A guaranteed return is always paired with its own term: Wyndham Garden BKK1 offers a choice of 8% × 3 years, 7% × 5 years or 6% × 10 years; Le Condé 1 — 8% × 3 years. You cannot take the highest percentage and the longest term separately. And GRR is a contractual obligation of a specific developer or hotel operator, not a market guarantee: it is worth exactly as much as the solvency of the company that signed it.

What a buyer thinking about relocation should expect

The picture is made up of three lines: the entry price, ownership taxes and the cost of the visa. Typical scenarios from our database:

Scenario	Form of ownership	Tax on purchase	Annually	Visa
Studio at $45,000, new-build	strata freehold	$0 — relief on housing from a developer up to $70,000	TOIP ~$20	ER ~$290/year
Studio at $20,000, resale	strata freehold, check the hard title	4% = $800	TOIP $0 — below the $25,000 threshold	ER ~$290/year
Villa with a plot at $350,000	leasehold, company or trust	4% = $14,000 on transfer of title; through a leasehold — lease registration fees instead	TOIP ~$325	ER or CM2H; with a business, EB + work permit

TOIP is 0.1% of value above $25,000, and rental income is taxed at 10% for a tax resident and 14% for a non-resident. The entry threshold is low: at Time Castle XI (BKK3, developer Megakim) a 50 m² 1BR unit went for $57,964 — $1,159/m², against a list price of $64,404 with a 10% discount. That is a historical example, not today's price list: by July 2026 the project is 95% sold, and the remaining stock now starts at around $1,300/m².

Legalising your residence is inexpensive: around $290 a year for ER; the "EB + work permit" combination comes to roughly $390–480 a year by components ($290 for the visa plus $100–190 for the work permit), although consolidated market reviews sometimes cite a higher figure — up to about $720 a year with all fees. What costs money is not the status but the property. Buying an apartment for the sake of a visa makes no sense — you can get the visa without buying anything.

Risks worth knowing about in advance

Status is a chain of extensions, not a document. A missed extension means losing your legal right to be in the country.
Fee figures move — these are market reference points, not the immigration department's price list. The CM2H terms are flagged as unconfirmed in our database.
The tax landscape is changing. The 20% capital gains tax (effectively around 4% after the deduction) is deferred to 1 January 2027 — a date that has already been moved. In parallel, licensing of estate agents through the Real Estate and Pawnshop Regulator under the FSA is being tightened.
Cheap resale property often comes with soft title — without hard title no right arises. A separate risk zone is Sihanoukville's construction sites frozen since the pandemic: they are slated for demolition.
Liquidity. There is barely any secondary market: an urgent exit can take 6–12 months.

The general frame for expectations: independent assessments put net rental yields at 4–8% a year. Promises of "15–20% guaranteed profit" are a marker to walk away from the deal.

Frequently asked questions

Does buying an apartment give you the right to stay in Cambodia without a visa? No. Ownership and stay are governed by different laws and different agencies. An owner lives in the country on the same basis as anyone else — on a Type E visa extended annually into ER or EB.

Does Cambodia have a "golden visa" for real estate? The closest analogue is CM2H: a 10-year visa and the possibility of applying for citizenship after 5 years, subject to a condition of around $100,000. But that condition is not the same as buying an apartment, and its parameters need to be verified at immigration.gov.kh.

How much does it cost to live in Cambodia legally for a year if I do not work? The reference point is around $290 for an annual Type E extension in the ER subclass with multiple entry; no work permit is required. If you run a business, you will need EB plus a work permit: by components that is ~$390–480 a year ($290 + $100–190), while consolidated reviews sometimes cite up to ~$720. All these figures are market reference points (expat and agency reports), not the immigration department's official tariff.

Will I become a Cambodian tax resident if I get a long-term visa? It is not the visa that makes you a resident but the fact of presence: 183 days or more in a calendar year. A resident is taxed on income from Cambodian and foreign sources, but may credit tax paid abroad. Cambodia has a DTA with Thailand but none with Russia, so this needs to be worked through with a tax adviser.

The developer promises a free visa with the purchase — is that a residence permit? No, those are visa fees that the developer pays for a period of one to three years depending on the size of the unit. Legally your status remains a Type E visa, which after the bonus period you extend yourself and at your own expense.

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This material is for reference only. Figures are based on knowledge-base data at the time of publication and do not constitute investment advice.