Foreigners may not exceed ten percent of a company's staff, and the work permit is issued within that quota, for a named employer.
medium confidenceCambodia is the easiest country in the region to get into: a visa on arrival or online, no income threshold, and family can arrive with the main applicant and get the same visa and extensions. But there are no state commitments behind that ease: no processing deadlines, no refusal statistics, no path from extensions to permanent status. The familiar routine rests on agents' practice, not on law.
In 2025-2026 the era of buying an extension and living as you please came to an end. The FWCMS work permit system is linked to the immigration database, and 6- and 12-month EB extensions without a valid work permit are now refused. Since 2026 a missing FPCS registration can block an extension, and it is the landlord who files it through an app: your status depends on a third party.
The region's largest crackdown on scam centres is under way: 737 centres uncovered, more than 21,000 foreigners deported in a year, about 240,000 leaving "voluntarily" in the first half of 2026, and a new anti-scam law passed in April 2026. The campaign targets illegal stay and illegal work, but legal residents now face stricter document checks too, and banks have tightened customer checks and turn away short-term visitors. Under the 1994 law a foreigner can be expelled by order of the Interior Minister, with no published criteria.
Losing a job does not end a current EB extension, and a jobseeker can get an EG extension for up to six months, but only once, without the right to work, and the visa is cancelled if you leave the country. Changing employer means a new permit through the full procedure and a quota held by the new employer. A spouse gets non-working dependant status, and state schools teach in Khmer and are in practice closed to foreign children, so families pay for private and international schools. ABA and ACLEDA open accounts for holders of long-stay visas, and the economy runs on dollars.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa exemption: entry on a visa on arrival or an e-visa, then the same extension procedure as for everyone.
Visa-free on an ordinary passport: Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and the Maldives for 30 days, Seychelles for 15, Brunei, Myanmar and Thailand for 14 (Cambodian Foreign Ministry list as of 25 September 2026).
The e-visa is not available without prior Foreign Ministry clearance: the route starts with manual approval.
Visa-free for up to 30 days only on diplomatic and service passports; with an ordinary passport, entry on a visa on arrival or an e-visa like everyone else. We found no special restrictions or benefits for extensions.
The visa exemption covers diplomatic passports only (Cambodian Foreign Ministry list as of 25 September 2026): with an ordinary passport, entry on a visa like everyone else. We found no special restrictions or benefits by nationality for EB extensions.
Visa-free for up to 30 days only on diplomatic and service passports; with an ordinary passport, entry on a visa like everyone else. We found no special restrictions or benefits for extensions.
The place interval 78-91 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
Medium confidenceSome scores rest on second-class sources. The score and the place stand, but read them with that caveat.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Settling in: 65 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 69.5. The weakest is Path to citizenship: 7 against 57.1. Above the world average: 0 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
Most foreigners have no residence permit in the usual sense: they live on an E visa with EB extensions of 1 to 12 months. A resident card exists, but it is issued at the Interior Ministry's discretion and does not follow from extensions.
You can live there on short EB extensions of 1 or 3 months, granted without employment papers. To work you need a permit, and long 6- and 12-month extensions are now refused without one.
We found no official tariff: in practice extensions go through agents, who set the price. FPCS registration is free, and the work permit is paid for separately every year.
Dismissal does not end a current extension, and an EG extension of up to six months exists for job hunting. But status rests on extensions without a solid legal framework: expulsion can be ordered by the minister with no published criteria, and an extension can be refused without FPCS registration.
EB extensions lead to no permanent residence: the years do not count. Citizenship comes 7 years after obtaining a resident card, with exams in Khmer language, script and history, or by investment from $1 million. Dual citizenship has been allowed since December 2025.
Easy to get in, nothing to lean on: no deadlines, no statistics and no path to permanent status. The scam-centre crackdown targets people there illegally, but legal residents now face stricter document checks too.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.