The first 90 days: a sequenced checklist for relocating capital and life

A foreigner who lands in Phnom Penh has roughly 90 days to file for a work permit, a deadline that runs from the date of entry rather than the date anyone feels ready. The same arrival starts a separate clock for accommodation registration in the Foreigners Present in Cambodia System, the database that quietly governs whether later visa extensions are approved. Most people relocating to Cambodia treat these as paperwork. The ones who move capital well treat them as the opening moves of a sequence.

Relocation reads like a list. Find an apartment, open an account, ship the boxes, deploy the funds. In practice it behaves like a dependency chain, where each step unlocks the next and a step taken out of order can stall the two behind it. The 90-day figure is not a motivational slogan. It is a regulatory clock, and it rewards order over speed.

The clock starts at the airport

Entry itself is now structured. The Cambodia e-Arrival system has been mandatory for air travelers since July 2024, and the address a new arrival declares feeds into the registration that immigration later checks. The country runs a two-document model that catches people off guard. The Ordinary visa, the E-class, grants the right to stay. A separate work permit from the Ministry of Labour grants the right to work. Holding the first does not produce the second. A six or twelve month business extension renewed without a valid work permit on file is now routinely declined, because the immigration and labour databases were linked in 2024. The permit also runs on a calendar year, valid through 31 December and renewed between 1 January and 31 March, which means timing the first application matters as much as filing it.

The practical reading is simple. Status is not one decision. It is a small stack of decisions that have to be made in the right order, early.

Days one to thirty: status before capital

The first month is about standing, not spending. A foreigner enters on a 30-day E-class visa and then extends inside the country into the category that matches intent. The EB extension covers business and work and comes in one, three, six, and twelve month terms, though only the six and twelve month versions allow multiple entries. Retirees over 55 with proof of pension or savings use the ER route. The category chosen here shapes everything downstream, including which bank will open an account and how quickly.

There is a reason advisors push status to the front. Capital deployed before status is settled tends to sit in structures that have to be unwound later, at cost. Status settled first means the money lands once.

Days thirty to sixty: the banking and entity layer

The middle month is where structure gets built. Foreigners can hold 100 percent of a Cambodian company in most sectors, registered through the CamDX online platform run by the Ministry of Commerce, typically within one to three weeks. A director need not reside in the country, though a resident company secretary is required. Minimum declared capital sits near KHR 4 million, close to 1,000 US dollars, deposited into a corporate account after incorporation. That account is not optional. Confirmation of it must reach the General Department of Taxation within 15 business days of tax registration.

Banking deserves its own attention. A personal account generally needs a passport and a valid visa, and several banks still want the applicant physically present for verification. Cambodia runs a dollarised economy with no foreign exchange controls on standard commercial flows, which means capital can move in and out in US dollars without the friction common elsewhere in the region. That openness is an advantage only to those who have built the account ready to receive it.

Days sixty to ninety: capital finally moves

By the final month, the groundwork should make deployment quiet. For property, the rules are precise. Foreigners can own strata-titled units above the ground floor, capped at 70 percent of a building under the 2010 Foreign Ownership Law. Land itself stays in Cambodian hands under the Constitution, which is why landed assets run through long-term leases or majority-Cambodian companies. A standard condominium transfer carries a 4 percent tax on assessed value and takes around twelve weeks to register at the cadastral office. Smaller units have at times qualified for stamp duty relief, and a planned 20 percent capital gains tax on property has been postponed to January 2027.

None of this is exotic. It is ordinary, and ordinary is the point. The investor who arrives with status, an entity, and a funded account treats the purchase as the last step rather than the first crisis.

What relocating to Cambodia rewards

The system has formalized over the past two years. Documentation carries more weight than it once did, databases now talk to each other, and the casual arrival who improvised through the process has fewer shortcuts. Read one way, that is friction. Read more carefully, it is a filter that favors preparation. The same structure that slows the unprepared protects the investor who sequenced the year before landing.

That is the quiet logic of the first 90 days. The work is front-loaded and unglamorous. Almost none of it involves the asset everyone came for.

The first 90 days do not reward speed. They reward order, and the order is the asset.

Investors who map the sequence before they land spend those weeks executing rather than discovering. The planning rarely feels urgent at the time. It usually decides how the year that follows begins.

At My First Corner, the Concierge desk runs this sequence with clients before the first flight is booked, from status to banking to the structure that holds the capital. The conversation is available when the timing is useful.