Phnom Penh vs Siem Reap: Tenant Depth or Tourism Bet

Quick answer: Phnom Penh is a tenant-depth market and Siem Reap is a tourism bet, and in 2026 the bet is losing. Angkor sold 428,223 international tickets from January to July, down 30.7% year on year, while the capital’s embassy, NGO and corporate tenants kept paying rent regardless.

Most comparisons between these two cities are written as though the choice were between a mature market and an emerging one. That framing survives only until you look at what happened to Siem Reap’s demand engine this year.

The two cities do not differ by degree. They differ in kind. One of them houses people who work in Cambodia. The other houses people who visit it, and the visitors stopped arriving in the numbers the investment case assumed.

Three figures set the frame for everything below. Angkor Archaeological Park sold 428,223 international tickets between January and July 2026, a fall of 30.7% from 618,771 in the same period of 2025. Ticket revenue over those seven months came to $20.3 million against $28.6 million a year earlier. And Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, built for $1.1 billion and opened in October 2023 with capacity for 7 million passengers a year, moved 714,133 passengers across the entire first half of 2026. Our analysis treats the third figure as the most useful of the three, because an airport running at roughly a fifth of its design capacity measures the whole regional demand picture rather than one attraction’s ticket gate. Insider tip: the July 2026 detail is sharper than the seven-month total, because 40,451 arrivals and $1.85 million of revenue in a single month show the decline was still running at 21% and 20% at the most recent reading rather than tapering.

Which city are you actually buying into?

Phnom Penh is a capital-city rental market with resident tenants and roughly 76,000 to 80,000 condominium units of supply. Siem Reap is a tourism market where condominiums are about 20% of stock, landed houses and villas about 55%, borey townhouses about 20% and shophouses the remaining 5%.

Dimension	Phnom Penh	Siem Reap
Primary demand driver	Resident employment	International visitors
Condominium share of stock	Deep, multi-district	About 20%
Landed and villa share	Large but foreign-closed	About 55%
Seasonality	Low, year round	High, arrival driven
Buyer pool on exit	City wide	Narrow, tourism linked
Foreign-eligible product	Strata across many districts	Strata in a handful of schemes

The composition difference decides more than the price difference does. In a market where 55% of stock is landed and closed to foreigners, and another 20% is borey and equally closed, a foreign buyer is competing for a fifth of the inventory and will later be selling into that same fifth. Our analysis treats the narrowness of the foreign-eligible slice as Siem Reap’s defining risk, ahead of price and ahead of yield, because it is the constraint that does not improve when tourism recovers. A checklist that stops at eligibility misses this: eligibility is fine in both cities, and the difference shows up on the day you want your money back.

• Phnom Penh spreads foreign-eligible stock across many districts.
• Siem Reap concentrates it in a small number of schemes.
• District-level Phnom Penh pricing sits in the district price guide.
• The existing Siem Reap page is the Siem Reap area guide.
• The coastal version of this comparison is Phnom Penh versus Sihanoukville.

What happened to Siem Reap tourism in 2026?

Angkor tourism contracted sharply. The park recorded 428,223 ticketed international visitors from January to July 2026, down 30.7% from 618,771, and revenue of $20.3 million against $28.6 million. In July alone arrivals fell 21% year on year to 40,451 and revenue fell 20% to $1.85 million.

Measure	2025	Jan to Jul 2026
International ticketed visitors	955,131 for the full year	428,223
Ticket revenue	$44.71 million for the full year	$20.3 million
Year-on-year change in visitors	Recovering	Down 30.7%
Year-on-year change in revenue	Rising	Down 29%
July arrivals	Not isolated	40,451, down 21%
Airport passengers	Not isolated	714,133 in H1

Reported causes include global economic softness, fuel prices, conflict in the Middle East and tension on the Cambodia and Thailand border. Our analysis deliberately does not forecast which of these reverses first, because a buyer does not need that forecast to make the decision: an asset whose income depends on a variable this volatile should be underwritten at the low end of the range rather than at the recovery case. The red flag to watch for is an agent presenting 2019 arrival figures, or even 2025 figures, as the baseline for a 2026 purchase. The baseline is what the gate counted this year, and this year it counted 428,223 people over seven months.

• Use 2026 arrivals as the underwriting baseline, not 2019 or 2025.
• Ask which months the projected occupancy assumes.
• Hotel and guesthouse exposure is treated in the hotel investment guide.
• Short-stay letting economics sit in the Airbnb guide.
• The national picture is in the 2026 market outlook.

What does property cost in each city?

Siem Reap condos run about $1,100 to $2,700 per sqm, with newer foreign-eligible strata in prime locations asking $2,000 to $3,000. Phnom Penh averages near $1,800 per sqm citywide, spanning roughly $1,067 to $2,774 by district, so the capital contains both cheaper and dearer product than Siem Reap does.

Price measure	Phnom Penh	Siem Reap
City average per sqm	About $1,800	Not published separately
Range per sqm	About $1,067 to $2,774 by district	About $1,100 to $2,700
Prime foreign-eligible strata	$2,300 to $3,200 in BKK1 and Tonle Bassac	$2,000 to $3,000
Studio ticket	$35,000 to $65,000	Thin at the entry end
Quoted gross yield	5.22% to 7.4%	7% to 8% asking side
Number of districts in play	Many	Effectively one

The headline that Siem Reap is cheaper does not survive the detail. At the prime end the two cities overlap almost exactly, and at the entry end Phnom Penh is materially cheaper because it has studio product from $35,000 that Siem Reap largely does not. Our underwriting treats the quoted 7% to 8% Siem Reap yield as an asking-side number computed on a listing price in a year when the visitor count fell by nearly a third, which is a methodology problem rather than a data problem. Full Phnom Penh yield workings sit on the yield guide and are not repeated here.

• Prime pricing in the two cities is closer than the marketing suggests.
• Phnom Penh’s entry tickets have no real Siem Reap equivalent.
• Capital yield workings are in the Phnom Penh yield guide.
• District-by-district yields sit in the district yield comparison.
• Ticket sizes across the capital are in the condo price guide.

Who is the tenant in each market?

Phnom Penh tenants are residents: embassy and NGO staff, corporate secondees, garment and finance sector employees, and a domestic middle class paying on twelve-month leases. Siem Reap tenants are tourism-linked, either short-stay visitors or the hospitality workforce serving them, which is why occupancy tracks the 30.7% fall in arrivals with almost no lag at all.

Tenant characteristic	Phnom Penh	Siem Reap
Typical lease length	Twelve months	Nightly to short term
Income source of tenant	Salary in Cambodia	Visitor spending
Vacancy behaviour	Gradual	Follows arrivals directly
Seasonal swing	Modest	Pronounced
Turnover cost to owner	Low	High, per stay
Occupancy benchmark	75% to 80% across districts	Tracks arrivals directly
Management intensity	Light	Operational

The distinction matters more than the yield spread, because it changes what kind of asset you own. A twelve-month lease to a salaried tenant is a fixed-income instrument with a property attached. A nightly booking business is an operating company with a property attached, and it carries staffing, cleaning, platform fees and a marketing function. Our analysis has consistently found that buyers comparing a Siem Reap gross yield with a Phnom Penh gross yield are comparing an operating margin with a rent, and that the buyer scenario most likely to disappoint is the remote owner who expects the first to behave like the second. The scale of the gap is easy to underestimate: housekeeping, utilities, reception and platform fees absorb roughly 30% to 40% of gross revenue on a serviced or short-stay basis, which is enough to bring a quoted 8% down to the bottom of the 5.22% to 7.4% gross range that a plain Phnom Penh lease produces with no operating team at all.

• A nightly-let asset is an operating business, not a lease.
• Staffing, cleaning and platform fees sit below the gross number.
• Long versus short letting is compared in the Airbnb versus long-term guide.
• Management options are in the property management guide.
• Occupancy data for the capital sits in the occupancy guide.

How does the ownership rule differ between the two cities?

The rule is identical in the two cities. Foreign buyers hold freehold strata title on private units above the ground floor, capped at 70% of the total area of all private units in the building, under the Law of 24 May 2010 and Sub-Decree No. 126 of 2009. Land and landed houses stay closed in both.

Ownership question	Phnom Penh	Siem Reap
Strata above ground floor	Freehold, in your name	Freehold, in your name
Foreign cap	70% of total private-unit area	70% of total private-unit area
Ground-floor units	Excluded	Excluded
Land freehold	Closed	Closed
Borey or landed house	Closed	Closed
Practical constraint	Which district	Whether stock exists

Because the legal position is identical, every difference between the two cities is commercial rather than regulatory, and that is a cleaner comparison than most country-level property decisions offer. Our analysis treats this as the one genuinely simplifying fact in the whole exercise: a buyer does not have to weigh two legal regimes, only two demand pictures. The practical due-diligence checklist is therefore the same in both places, and the remaining foreign quota should be confirmed in writing by floor stack before any deposit moves, in Siem Reap exactly as in the capital.

• The 70% cap is measured on total area, never on the number of units.
• Ground-floor exclusion applies identically in both cities.
• The full rule sits in the foreign ownership guide.
• Structure routes for land are in the lease, nominee and trust guide.
• Title classes are explained in the soft versus hard title guide.

How liquid is each market on exit?

Phnom Penh is materially more liquid than Siem Reap on every measure that matters at exit. The capital sustains a year-round buyer pool across many districts, while Siem Reap’s foreign-eligible product is about 20% of a market whose other 80% is landed, borey and shophouse stock that no foreign buyer can legally purchase from you.

Exit factor	Phnom Penh	Siem Reap
Buyer pool	Broad, year round	Narrow, tourism sentiment linked
Foreign-eligible share of stock	Substantial	About 20%
Comparable transactions	Frequent	Sparse
Marketing period	Months	Longer, less predictable
Price discovery	Reasonable	Weak
Sensitivity to arrivals	Indirect	Direct

Exit is where the tourism number reappears, and it is the reason this comparison does not end in a draw. When you sell a Siem Reap condominium you are selling to someone who is making the same tourism bet you made, and their willingness to make it depends on the arrival figures published that quarter. Our underwriting therefore prices Siem Reap exposure as a position to be sized rather than a market to be entered, and a red flag worth naming is any resale projection that assumes a buyer will pay a recovery-case price for an asset whose income has not recovered. Phnom Penh’s exit case is duller and more dependable, which is the whole argument.

• Siem Reap resale depends on the next buyer sharing your tourism view.
• Sparse comparables make price discovery weak.
• Exit mechanics sit in the exit strategy guide.
• Resale depth is covered in the resale liquidity guide.
• Capital district selection is in the best areas guide.

Advantages and disadvantages

Phnom Penh trades excitement for dependability. Siem Reap offers a genuine story and a genuinely worse set of 2026 numbers underneath it.

Advantage	Disadvantage
Phnom Penh tenants pay from Cambodian salaries	Phnom Penh offers no growth narrative
Phnom Penh entry tickets start near $35,000	Phnom Penh supply is deep at 76,000 to 80,000 units
Siem Reap has a globally known demand anchor	Angkor visitors fell 30.7% in the first seven months of 2026
Siem Reap has a $1.1 billion airport built for 7 million	That airport moved 714,133 passengers in H1 2026
Siem Reap asking yields of 7% to 8% look attractive	They are gross, asking side and arrival dependent
Identical legal rules simplify the comparison	Siem Reap foreign-eligible stock is only about 20%

An expressway is the one item that could change the picture, and it is not yet a fact. The Phnom Penh to Siem Reap section runs 249 km at an estimated $2.5 billion, with a further 151 km to Poipet at about $1.7 billion. The feasibility study by China Road and Bridge Corporation is complete and the report has gone to government. There is no funded contract and no construction start date. This site’s methodology gives studied infrastructure no value until one of those two exists, which is the same test applied to the Arey Ksat crossing on the Chbar Ampov page, and on that test the expressway contributes nothing to a 2026 valuation. The distance is the reason the project matters at all: 249 km of road currently takes five to six hours by national highway, and an expressway would put Siem Reap inside a weekend drive of a capital with 76,000 to 80,000 condominium units and the domestic wealth to fill them.

Buyer scenarios and red flags

Three scenarios cover most enquiries that reach us with both cities on the list, and the red flags repeat across all three.

Scenario	What they want	What we would recommend
First Cambodian asset under $80,000	Cheapest legal entry	Phnom Penh; Siem Reap is thin at this ticket
Lifestyle buyer who visits twice a year	Use it and let it	Siem Reap works, underwritten at 2026 arrivals
Income buyer needing a predictable net	Rent that arrives monthly	Phnom Penh; the tenant is a resident

The failure pattern is a recovery priced as though it had happened. A buyer reads that Siem Reap has a new international airport, that Angkor is a UNESCO site with permanent appeal, and that agents quote 7% to 8%, and concludes that 2026 is the bottom. It may be. But the airport is running at roughly a fifth of its 7 million passenger capacity, the gate counted 428,223 international visitors in seven months, and the yield quoted is a gross figure on an asking price. Our underwriting takes all three at face value and simply refuses to add a recovery assumption on top, which usually moves the decision to Phnom Penh without any argument about whether Siem Reap is a good place.

• Underwrite Siem Reap on 2026 arrivals, not on 2019 or a recovery case.
• Treat quoted 7% to 8% as asking side and gross.
• Value the expressway at zero until a contract is funded.
• Confirm the remaining foreign quota by floor stack in either city.
• Ask how many comparable resales the building has actually recorded.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Phnom Penh or Siem Reap the better investment in 2026? +

Phnom Penh for most foreign buyers. Its tenants are residents who pay regardless of visitor numbers, while Siem Reap lost 30.7% of its ticketed international visitors in the first seven months of 2026.

What happened to Siem Reap tourism in 2026? +

Angkor sold 428,223 international tickets from January to July against 618,771 a year earlier, with revenue of $20.3 million against $28.6 million. July was down 21% on arrivals.

Did the new airport help? +

Not measurably yet. Siem Reap Angkor International Airport cost $1.1 billion, opened 16 October 2023 with capacity for 7 million passengers a year, and handled 714,133 in the whole first half of 2026.

What do condos cost in each city? +

Siem Reap runs about $1,100 to $2,700 per sqm, with prime foreign-eligible strata at $2,000 to $3,000. Phnom Penh averages near $1,800 across a much wider district range.

Are Siem Reap yields really 7% to 8%? +

That is an asking-side gross figure computed on listing prices, in a year when visitors fell by nearly a third. Treat it as a ceiling rather than a forecast.

Do the ownership rules differ? +

No. Both cities follow the same national rule: freehold strata above the ground floor, capped at 70% of the total area of private units under Sub-Decree No. 126. Land is closed in both.

Which city is easier to sell out of? +

Phnom Penh. Siem Reap condominiums are about 20% of a market dominated by landed houses and villas, so the resale pool for a foreign-eligible unit is structurally small.