What Jobs Can Foreigners Get in Cambodia in 2026?

Most foreigners who support themselves in Cambodia earn income through English teaching, NGO or development work, remote employment for a company abroad, or running a small business. A smaller niche exists around English-language childcare and private tutoring. Across all these tracks, most people earn somewhere between $800 and $4,000 per month, and the majority work entirely in English without speaking Khmer.

At a glance

This article covers what people actually earn across the main income tracks and how the numbers work in practice. Work permit procedure, including the FWCMS portal, Foreign Employee Quota, and self-employment registration, is covered separately in the Cambodia work permit guide.

> Conditions described in this guide reflect what long-stay foreigners commonly report as of April 2026. Pay rates, school hiring policies, and local business conditions shift. Verify anything time-sensitive before acting on it.

The Compliance Baseline

Every foreigner earning income in Cambodia needs two things: a valid EB visa extension (from the Immigration Department) and a work permit with employment card (from the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, or MLVT). These come from two separate ministries. Having one without the other does not make you compliant.

The fines for non-compliance are real. Under Joint Prakas No. 498 (31 July 2023), a self-employed foreigner conducting business without a work permit faces a fine of KHR 50.4 million, which is about $12,600 USD. An employer found with unpermitted foreign staff faces KHR 12.6 million per employee. Working on a tourist visa is explicitly prohibited.

The full process, including the FWCMS portal and how to register as self-employed, is in the Cambodia work permit guide. What matters here is that every earning track below requires this legal foundation.

English Teaching

Teaching English is the most accessible starting point for foreigners in Cambodia. It is one of the few countries in Asia where you do not need a bachelor's degree to get hired, though having one opens significantly better-paying roles.

Private language centres are the largest employer for new arrivals. Based on 2025–2026 TEFL salary guides and public teaching-job listings, private language-centre roles commonly pay $10–$14 per hour, or $800–$1,200 per month for full-time work. Most run evening and weekend schedules around school hours. A 120-hour TEFL certificate is typically required; a degree is preferred but not mandatory. Kansas American Academy, which has multiple campuses in Phnom Penh including Russey Keo, is one example that actively hires native and fluent English-speaking teachers and posts early years roles at $1,200–$1,500 per month.

International schools pay considerably more but require a relevant degree and prior classroom experience. Salaries at established international schools are widely reported at $1,200–$2,500 per month across 2025–2026 TEFL and job-placement sources. Top-tier IB and Cambridge programmes pay more, sometimes $3,000–$5,000 for experienced licensed teachers, often with benefits including health cover and paid leave. The most established names in Phnom Penh include:

• International School of Phnom Penh (ISPP) — IB curriculum, students from 50+ countries, among the highest fees and salaries in Cambodia
• Canadian International School of Phnom Penh (CIS) — Alberta curriculum, three campuses, certified international teachers
• iCAN British International School — British curriculum, centrally located, well-regarded for mid-range affordability
• Northbridge International School Cambodia (NISC) — large campus, wide extracurricular programme
• British International School of Phnom Penh — Cambodia's first Cambridge registered centre, founded 1995
• Footprints International School — Cambridge-registered, affordable fees, actively recruits foreign teachers

Salaries at these schools are widely reported at $1,200–$2,500 per month. Top-tier IB and Cambridge programmes pay more, sometimes $3,000–$5,000 for experienced licensed teachers, often with benefits including health cover and paid leave.

French-medium schools occupy a smaller but real niche. ACACIA, a bilingual French-English nursery with a Phnom Penh campus, recruits teachers with French education backgrounds. The Lycée Français René Descartes serves the Francophone community. Qualified French-speaking teachers face much less competition than English-track applicants.

Private tutoring supplements teaching salaries across all levels. Business English tutoring for Cambodian professionals is widely reported at $10–$25 per hour and is a growing segment in Phnom Penh, particularly among executives at local companies and international firms.

The honest picture: teaching alone in Cambodia will not build wealth. But a teacher earning $1,000–$1,500 per month, a range consistently cited in 2025–2026 TEFL sources for Phnom Penh, can live comfortably against typical living costs and save modestly. The people who do better tend to combine a school salary with private tutoring or remote work on the side.

NGO and Development Work

Cambodia still has a visible NGO and development-sector job market, especially in Phnom Penh, with openings across project management, monitoring and evaluation, public health, education, and human rights.

Foreign NGO staff salaries are commonly reported at $1,000–$3,500 per month. Senior roles, including country directors and programme leads at large INGOs, pay more and typically include health insurance and sometimes housing allowances. UN agencies sit at the upper end of the range.

The realistic entry point: most NGO positions require relevant professional experience and a degree. Entry-level roles are largely filled by local staff or international volunteers. For a mid-career professional with five or more years in development, public health, or programme management, Cambodia's NGO sector is genuinely accessible, though competition is real and the sector has been gradually shifting more senior roles to local professionals.

Job platforms worth checking: Reliefweb Cambodia for UN and INGO roles, Idealist.org, BongThom (strong for local NGO listings), CamHR, and LinkedIn groups including Cambodia Professionals and Cambodia Private Sector. In practice, Phnom Penh is small enough that introductions carry weight. Being on the ground matters.

Childcare, Tutoring, and English-Language Household Work

A smaller but real niche exists around English-speaking childcare, tutoring, and household education support. Filipino nationals and other fluent English-speaking Asians fill many of these roles in Phnom Penh, particularly for expat and Cambodian Chinese families who want their children to grow up bilingual.

The demand is specific. Ethnic Chinese families in Phnom Penh often prefer English-speaking nannies for a practical reason: a nanny who provides care and speaks fluent English all day serves two purposes at once. UCA News reported in May 2025 that top-bracket nanny roles in Phnom Penh can reach about $1,000 per month, but this should be treated as the upper end of a narrow market, not a typical starting rate. Most arrangements pay considerably less.

Private English tutoring for children of well-off Cambodian families follows the same logic. Parents value a native or fluent speaker regardless of nationality, and Filipinos, Singaporeans, and Malaysians regularly fill these roles alongside Western teachers.

The compliance requirement applies here as it does everywhere else. Anyone earning income in Cambodia needs a valid EB extension and a work permit. Cash arrangements without permits are common in this sector, but that is a risk the worker carries personally.

Remote Work

A growing share of foreigners in Cambodia earn their income remotely, working for companies in the US, UK, EU, Canada, or Australia while living in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. Expat community reports describe software developers, consultants, writers, designers, and marketers earning $2,000–$5,000 per month from remote clients while spending $1,000–$1,500 on a comfortable life.

Cambodia does not have a dedicated digital nomad visa. For remote workers staying long term, the conservative compliance view is to take EB status and work permit planning seriously, especially if you invoice clients, register a business, take Cambodian clients, or use Cambodia as your regular year-round work base. The official guidance is clearer for local employment, self-employment, and owner-operated businesses than for overseas-only remote arrangements, so remote workers should verify their exact situation with an advisory firm rather than assuming an EB extension alone is enough. Enforcement has been tightening, and immigration officers increasingly ask about work permits at EB renewal time.

Compliance options include registering a sole proprietorship, using an Employer of Record service, or being employed through a locally registered company. The Cambodia work permit guide covers each option.

Running a Small Business

Cambodia is one of the more accessible countries in Southeast Asia for foreigners to start a business. Foreigners can own 100% of a company in most sectors, with no local partner required.

Restaurants, cafés, and bars are the most common business type among foreign entrepreneurs. The barrier to entry is low relative to other countries in the region, but competition in Phnom Penh is fierce. The most established expat-dining areas, BKK1 and Tonle Bassac, carry the highest rents. Toul Tom Poung and Russian Market offer lower entry costs and are increasingly popular with newer businesses. Community sources consistently note that success requires something genuinely different and strong cost control. The failure rate among foreigner-run food and beverage businesses is high.

Tour operations for home-country visitors can work when the foreigner handles marketing, customer communication, itinerary design, or business development for a specific source market. The actual guiding must be handled by properly licensed Cambodian tour guides. Under Article 35 of Cambodia's Tourism Law, a tour guide licence requires Khmer nationality, so foreigners cannot personally work as licensed guides, including at major sites such as Angkor. Cambodia welcomed more than 6.7 million international visitors in 2024, above pre-pandemic levels, and this tourism rebound supports niche tour businesses — but the operator role is on the business side, not the guide side.

Guesthouses and boutique accommodation are viable but come with a structural constraint. Foreigners cannot own land in Cambodia directly. A Cambodian spouse can hold the land title, enabling small hotels, guesthouses, and homestays. Without that, the options are leasehold arrangements (typically 50 years, renewable) or operating from a strata-titled condo unit. Property investment as a passive income source, such as condo rental yields, is a separate topic better covered alongside the Cambodia CM2H golden visa and the full buying-process detail that sits outside the scope of this article.

All self-employed foreigners and business owner-operators need a work permit, including those named on a company's patent tax certificate. See the Cambodia work permit guide for registration steps.

How the Numbers Work

The practical equation is straightforward. Earn $1,500–$3,000 per month from any combination of the tracks above, spend $800–$1,200 on a comfortable life in Phnom Penh (a range widely reported across expat community sources as of 2025–2026), and the gap is savings or reinvestment. Siem Reap, Kampot, and Battambang run 10–20% cheaper than the capital.

For housing costs specifically, the renting guide for Phnom Penh covers what furnished apartments actually cost by district and what to expect from the lease process. Healthcare and health insurance add roughly $100–$200 per month for most foreigners, based on commonly cited expat health plan costs in Cambodia.

The people who struggle are those who arrive without a plan, expect a teaching salary to cover a Western lifestyle, or underestimate the cost of getting legally compliant from the start. The people who do well tend to stack income: teach part-time, tutor privately, freelance remotely, or combine a modest salary with a small business on the side.

City and District Variation

Phnom Penh is where the vast majority of professional opportunities sit: international schools, NGOs, most remote work infrastructure, and the largest expat community. It is also the most expensive city in Cambodia, though still cheap by regional standards.

Siem Reap is tourism-dependent. Teaching, hospitality, and tour operation are the main income tracks for foreigners. The expat community is smaller and tighter. Costs are lower but job variety is limited outside tourism.

Kampot and Kep attract foreigners running small hospitality businesses, working remotely, or semi-retired. Employed positions are minimal.

Battambang has a small NGO and education sector. Living costs are among the lowest in the country, and some teachers report saving a higher share of a modest salary here than in the capital.

Community-Reported Problems

Underestimating work permit enforcement. Foreigners who operated for years on EB extensions without a work permit have increasingly run into problems at renewal time. The consistent advice from recent community and practitioner sources: get the work permit from the start, not after you have been working for a year.

Restaurant businesses that bleed money. Accounts of foreigners opening restaurants without enough market research, overpaying for BKK1 rent, or underestimating the operational realities of food and beverage in Cambodia are common across expat forums. The most consistent advice: spend at least three to six months on the ground observing before committing capital.

Informal nanny and tutor arrangements. Cash arrangements without permits are common in the childcare and private tutoring sector. Workers in these situations carry the compliance risk personally, and the fines apply regardless of sector or income level.