How to Evaluate a Phnom Penh Real Estate Investment

Around 80 percent of bank deposits in Cambodia are held in US dollars. Property is priced in dollars, sale agreements are written in dollars, and rent is collected in dollars. For a foreign buyer weighing a Phnom Penh purchase, whether off-plan or on the secondary market, that single fact redraws the risk map. Most cross-border checklists open with currency risk, which is the right instinct in Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City and close to irrelevant here. The riel has held near 4,000 to 4,100 to the dollar for years, and a foreign buyer earning and paying in dollars carries almost no translation loss. Remove the currency line and the analysis moves to what actually decides the result: what you can own, how it is taxed, how you pay for it, and who buys it when you exit.

What foreign ownership permits

Cambodia's 2010 foreign ownership law gives non-citizens a clear right: foreigners may hold strata title on private units from the first floor up, capped at 70 percent of the total strata area in any one building. Ground-floor units and land itself sit outside that right. The document that carries ownership is the hard title, the strongest record in the country. Before any deposit, confirm the strata registration, the share of foreign ownership already sold in the building, and that your specific unit qualifies. On a resale unit this also means checking that the title transferred cleanly to the current owner. These are not details. They separate a registrable purchase from one that never transfers properly.

The tax read

Cambodia applies a 4 percent transfer tax on a change of ownership. A first-time-buyer exemption on qualifying units valued up to $210,000 has been extended through the end of 2026, a real and time-bound saving. On exit, capital gains tax on immovable property is currently scheduled to start on 1 January 2027 at 20 percent of the gain, with an 80 percent standard deduction available that reduces the effective charge to roughly 4 percent of the sale price. Any projection running past 2027 should carry that charge rather than assume it away. Rental income is taxed by how the owner is classified, commonly 10 percent for a resident position against 14 percent for a non-resident one, and on a long yield-driven hold that gap compounds.

Financing, and the exit you plan early

Foreign buyers should assume they are buying in cash. Mortgage access for non-residents is limited and expensive, and most developer plans on off-plan simply stretch payment across the build rather than replacing it with debt. A return computed without borrowing is a return you actually keep, with no rate risk buried in the model. The exit deserves the same attention at entry. A foreign-owned unit sells back into the pool it came from, other foreign buyers plus the qualifying local market, inside the same 70 percent cap, so resale depth depends on building quality, floor, management and district, not on headline city averages. The new international airport south of the capital, open since September 2025, has begun pulling attention toward the southern corridor, while established central districts hold their secondary-market depth. At Invest in Phnom Penh, this is the review we run before a client commits.

A Phnom Penh purchase is not protected by its price. It is protected, or exposed, by the structure behind it.