Buying Property in Cambodia: The 2026 Guide for Foreigners
Foreigners can own condominium units in Cambodia outright, on strata title, from the first floor up — but not the ground floor, not land, and not more than 70% of the units in any one building. Two tax measures make 2026 unusual: the 20% capital gains tax on real estate has been deferred again, to 1 January 2027, and the stamp duty relief for homebuyers expires on 31 December 2026.
Those two dates are the reason to read a 2026 guide rather than a 2024 one. Most guides you will find on this subject were written once and never updated; several still describe a capital gains tax that has never actually come into force, and a stamp duty regime that has changed twice since.
We run a property portal covering Cambodia, and the price tables in section 3 are built from our own live Phnom Penh listings rather than from a market report. We are not the developer on any of them, which is why this guide tells you where the risks sit rather than where the marketing is.
Table of Contents
1. What a foreigner can and cannot own
Foreign ownership of property in Cambodia rests on one piece of legislation: the Law on Providing Foreigners with Ownership Rights in Private Units of Co-Owned Buildings, promulgated on 24 May 2010 and given effect by the Sub-Decree on the Management and Use of Co-Owned Buildings of 12 August 2009. Together they created strata title — a registered, freehold title over an individual unit inside a shared building.
What that law allows, and what it does not:
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Strata title on units | Yes — full freehold ownership, in your own name, registered at the cadastral office |
| Ground floor and basement | No — foreigners may only own from the first floor up |
| Share of the building | Maximum 70% of the private units in any co-owned building may be foreign-owned |
| Land | No — a foreign individual cannot hold land in Cambodia under any title |
| Within 30 km of a land border | No — foreigners may not own units in a building within thirty kilometres of a land border, with limited exceptions |
Law on Foreign Ownership (2010); Sub-Decree on Co-Owned Buildings (2009).
The 70% cap is the one that bites in practice, and it works exactly like the equivalent cap in Vietnam or Thailand: in a well-sold tower it fills, and once it is full the remaining units can only be sold to Cambodian buyers. Before you pay a reservation deposit, ask the developer or the building’s management for written, dated confirmation of the remaining foreign quota. Not a verbal assurance from a sales agent. A document. An agent who cannot produce one has told you something useful.
The three routes to land — and the one that is not real
If you want a house, a villa or a plot rather than a unit in a tower, there are three lawful structures and one common illusion.
- Long lease. Leases of up to 50 years are permitted, renewable. Any lease longer than 15 years must be registered at the land office to be enforceable against third parties. An unregistered long lease is worth considerably less than the paper it is written on.
- Cambodian-majority company. A locally incorporated company may own land provided 51% is held by a Cambodian entity. This is a real structure with real governance consequences — you are a minority shareholder in a company that owns your house.
- Marriage to a Cambodian national. The land is held in your spouse’s name. It is their asset, in law, whatever you paid.
- Nominee arrangements. A Cambodian “holds the land for you” under a side agreement. Nominee structures are not recognised under Cambodian law and are not valid legal structures. If the arrangement fails, there is no court in Cambodia that will enforce the side letter.
We have written the comparison out in full in freehold vs leasehold in Cambodia. The short version: if you want a title in your own name, buy a condo in Phnom Penh. If you want a house or villa, budget for a lawyer before you budget for furniture.
2. Hard title, soft title, strata title
Cambodia has three kinds of title in circulation, and the difference between them is the single biggest cause of loss for foreign buyers.
| Title | Registered where | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Hard title | Ministry of Land Management, national cadastral register | The strongest form of ownership. Slower and costlier to transfer, because the 4% transfer tax is assessed. Foreigners cannot hold it over land. |
| Soft title | Local commune or district office only | Widely used and widely traded, but not on the national register. Cheap and fast to transfer — and far harder to defend in a dispute. Not available to foreigners. |
| Strata title | National cadastral register, per unit | The one you want. Issued per unit in a registered co-owned building. This is what a foreigner buys. |
If a seller offers you a discount for a soft-title property, the discount is the risk, priced. Decline it.
3. What it actually costs: prices from our own listings
This is the section most guides replace with a vague range like “$1,500 to $3,000 per square metre.” That range is not wrong, but it is useless: it covers a $40,000 studio and a $6.5 million penthouse.
The tables below are built from the 109 Phnom Penh properties and 8 Sihanoukville properties currently listed for sale on this site, priced in September 2026. Where a project sells off-plan on a per-square-metre basis, we have shown the rate as published.
Phnom Penh condominiums, by project
| Project | District | USD / m² | Smallest unit we list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kingston Royale | Boeng Tumpun | 900 – 1,020 | 1BR, 45 m² — $40,500 |
| Golden One | BKK3 | 1,289 | 1BR, 45 m² — $58,000 |
| Time Square 11 | BKK3 | 1,299 | 1BR, 38 m² — $49,362 |
| Time Square 8 | Toul Tom Poung | 1,023 – 1,603 | 1BR, 47 m² — $75,375 |
| Time Square 6 & 9 | BKK1 | 1,444 – 2,050 | 1BR, 35 m² — $71,760 |
| Galaxy Garden / Orkide The Royal | Sen Sok | 1,552 – 1,638 | 1BR, 47 m² — $77,000 |
| J-Tower 1 | BKK1 | 1,733 – 1,778 | Studio, 45 m² — $78,000 |
| The Penthouse Residence | Tonle Bassac | 1,882 | 2BR, 68 m² — $128,000 |
| La Vista One | Chroy Changvar | 2,281 – 3,105 | 1BR, 57 m² — $130,000 |
| Le Condé | BKK1 | 2,046 – 4,118 | Studio, 28 m² — $80,000 |
| J Tower 2 | BKK1 | 3,132 | 3BR, 91 m² — $285,000 |
| G.A.T.O. Tower (off-plan) | BKK1 | 3,165 | Studio, 31 m² — from $98,000 |
| Odom Living | Chamkarmon | 3,513 – 3,875 | 1BR, 78 m² — $275,000 |
Beach & Houses listings, Phnom Penh, September 2026. Rates are asking prices divided by registered unit area.
Three things fall out of that table that a market report will not tell you.
BKK1 is not one market. It spans $1,444/m² at Time Square 6 and $4,118/m² at Le Condé — a factor of nearly three inside one district. “BKK1” on its own tells a buyer nothing.
The cheapest square metre is not the cheapest entry. Kingston Royale at Boeng Tumpun is the lowest rate on the list and also holds the lowest absolute entry price in our whole Cambodian inventory, at $40,500. That combination is rare; more often a low rate comes attached to a large unit.
Off-plan is priced per square metre, resale is priced per unit. G.A.T.O. Tower, Time Square 9 and Time Square 11 publish a rate and a “from” price because the unit mix is still being sold. A finished building quotes you a number. If you are weighing the two, our guide to buying an off-plan condo in Phnom Penh covers the payment-schedule risk in detail.
Phnom Penh condominiums, by unit size
| Unit | Listings | Size range | Price range | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio / 1 bedroom | 48 | 23 – 80 m² | $40,500 – $281,000 | $80,000 |
| 2 bedrooms | 23 | 50 – 132 m² | $62,500 – $511,000 | $130,000 |
| 3 bedrooms | 10 | 91 – 196 m² | $167,000 – $759,500 | $367,600 |
Beach & Houses listings, Phnom Penh, September 2026. Penthouses excluded from the medians.
The median one-bedroom in Phnom Penh, on our books, is $80,000. That is the number to hold in your head. Anything materially below it is either outside the central districts or carries something you have not yet found; anything materially above it is buying a brand.
At the top of the market, penthouses in Cambodia run from around $700,000 at La Vista One to $6.5 million for a duplex at Le Condé.
The coast: Sihanoukville
Sihanoukville prices at roughly half of central Phnom Penh: $1,000 – $1,464/m² across our listings, with one-bedroom sea-view units from $50,000 and a four-bedroom oceanfront unit of 215 m² at $237,000. Whether that is cheap or merely unsold is the question the city has been asking since 2019, and we take it up in is Sihanoukville a smart place to buy. Current stock is on our Sihanoukville page.
4. Taxes and fees in 2026 — including two that expire
Cambodia taxes property lightly by regional standards, and 2026 is lighter than usual because of two temporary measures. Both matter to the timing of a purchase.
Transfer (stamp) duty: 4%, with relief until 31 December 2026
The headline rate is 4% of the assessed transfer value, payable within three months of transfer. In law the buyer owes it; in practice, in Cambodia, the seller usually pays it — settle this explicitly in the sale agreement, because “usually” is not a contract term.
Two reliefs are in force and both expire at the end of 2026 unless extended again:
- First-time homebuyers (MEF Notification No. 020, 31 December 2024, extended by Notification No. 001 of January 2026): residential property valued at $210,000 or less is fully exempt; above that, $210,000 is deducted from the stamp duty base.
- Borey and condominium units from registered developers (MEF Notification No. 014, 9 October 2024): a $70,000 deduction from the stamp duty base.
On the median $80,000 one-bedroom in the table above, a first-time buyer pays nothing in stamp duty this year. In 2027, absent an extension, the same purchase costs $3,200. That is not a reason to buy a property you do not want, but it is a real number.
Annual immovable property tax: 0.1%
Charged at 0.1% per year on the assessed value, with the first 100 million riel (about $25,000) exempt, and the base discounted to 80% of the official valuation. The working formula is:
((assessed value × 80%) − $25,000) × 0.1%
On a $100,000 condo that is roughly $55 a year. Property tax is not what makes or breaks a Cambodian investment.
Rental income: 10% or 14%
| Tax | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rental income — tax resident | 10% | Of gross rent |
| Rental income — non-resident | 14% | Withholding, normally remitted by the tenant |
| Unused land tax | 2% | On assessed land value; five hectares per plot deductible |
| Agent commission | 2 – 3% | Market practice |
| Legal and due diligence | $500 – $1,500 | Budget for it; it is the cheapest insurance in this article |
If rental return is the point of the purchase, the yields we have measured on actual Phnom Penh units are in our Phnom Penh ROI case studies.
Capital gains tax: 20%, deferred again to 1 January 2027
This is where most published guides are simply wrong. Cambodia legislated a 20% capital gains tax on the disposal of immovable property, and has then postponed its entry into force repeatedly since 2021. The latest deferral, Prakas 496 of 18 July 2025, pushes real-estate CGT to 1 January 2027.
Two things follow. First, a sale completed in 2026 is not subject to it. Second — and this is the part that is easy to miss — the deferral only covers immovable property. Gains on the transfer of shares have been in scope since 1 January 2026, payable within three months of realisation. If you hold your Cambodian property through a 51/49 company and you exit by selling your shares in that company rather than the property itself, you are inside the CGT regime today.
Take advice on that specific point before you structure anything.
5. The buying process, step by step
- Confirm the building is registered as a co-owned building and that strata titles have actually been issued. Many completed towers in Phnom Penh have not completed strata registration. No strata title, no foreign ownership — whatever the brochure says.
- Get written confirmation of the remaining foreign quota within the 70% cap, dated and signed.
- Engage an independent lawyer. Independent means not recommended by the seller, the developer, or the agent.
- Due diligence on the title at the Ministry of Land Management: verify the title is hard/strata and not soft; verify the seller’s name matches; check for liens, mortgages and encumbrances; confirm the unit is not on the ground floor.
- Sign a Sale and Purchase Agreement in Khmer and English, with the Khmer version stated as governing. Deposits are typically 10%. Make the deposit refundable on failure of title due diligence or quota — in writing. Our guide to real estate contracts in Cambodia sets out the seven clauses to insist on.
- Transfer funds through the banking system, into Cambodia, with the transfer traceable to you. This matters when you eventually want to take the money out again.
- Register the transfer at the cadastral office and pay the 4% stamp duty within three months. Allow four to eight weeks for the new title to issue.
Expect eight to twelve weeks end to end for a resale, longer for off-plan, where completion is the trigger.
6. Due diligence: the five checks that matter
- Title type. Strata or hard, registered nationally. Soft title is a no.
- Seller identity. The name on the title, the name on the ID, and the name signing must be the same person. Where they are not, demand the power of attorney and have it verified.
- Encumbrances. Cambodian developers mortgage towers to fund construction. Ask specifically whether the unit is released from the developer’s construction mortgage, and get the release in writing before the final payment.
- Foreign quota. In writing, dated, from the management body.
- Service charges and sinking fund. Ask the current per-m² monthly rate and the fund balance. In older Phnom Penh towers, an underfunded sinking fund is a bill waiting for the next owner.
The scams that recur in this market are unremarkable and preventable: soft-title land sold as freehold, the same unit sold twice, fabricated titles, and “agents” with no registration. Every one of them is caught by steps 3 and 4 above.
7. Questions we are asked most
Can a foreigner get a mortgage in Cambodia?
Rarely, and not on good terms. Local banks that will lend to foreigners typically want 30% down and charge high single-digit to low double-digit interest. Most foreign purchases are cash, or developer instalments over the construction period — commonly 10–30% down with the balance staged to completion.
Do I need a visa or residency to buy?
No. Strata-title purchase does not require residency. If you intend to live in Cambodia afterwards, see how to get a retirement visa in Cambodia.
Can I take my money out when I sell?
Yes — Cambodia is dollarised and has no exchange controls on repatriation. The practical constraint is documentation: you need to be able to show the funds came in through the banking system. Keep every transfer record.
What is the minimum realistic budget?
On our current books, $40,500 buys a one-bedroom at Kingston Royale. Below roughly $40,000 you are outside the strata-title market, which means you are outside what a foreigner can own.
Is it better to buy in Cambodia or Thailand?
Different trade-off: Cambodia is cheaper to enter and taxes rental income more lightly, Thailand has deeper resale liquidity. We compared the two side by side in Cambodia vs Thailand property ROI.
Where to start looking
If you have read this far, the useful next step is inventory rather than more theory. Our current Cambodian stock:
- All property for sale in Cambodia
- Property for sale in Phnom Penh
- Apartments and condos for sale in Cambodia
- Property for sale in Sihanoukville
- Penthouses for sale in Cambodia
Sources
- DFDL — Cambodia Pointer: Foreign Ownership and Condominiums
- DFDL — Capital Gains Tax Deferred Again (Prakas 496)
- Kreston Cambodia — Cambodia’s 2026 Stamp Duty Relief on Property Transfers
- IPS Cambodia — Ultimate Guide on Cambodia Property Tax
- Realestate.com.kh — Foreign Property Ownership Mechanisms
Prices verified against our own listings on 11 September 2026; tax and legal positions verified the same day. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Take advice from a Cambodian lawyer and tax adviser before you buy.
Written by Phil Rooman — I spent 10 years as a real estate agent in Thailand before founding Beach & Houses in 2020, a property portal covering Vietnam, Thailand, Bali and Cambodia. I’m not the selling agent on any of these listings, which is why this guide tells you where the risks sit rather than where the marketing is.
