Phnom Penh Rental Yield by District: 2026 Comparison

Quick answer: Gross rental yields across Phnom Penh districts run from roughly 4.9% to 8.2% in 2026. BKK1 sits at 6% to 8% with the most reliable tenancy, Chroy Changvar averages near 5.83% despite cheaper entry, and affordable-segment units in emerging districts reach the top of the range.

Yield tables for Phnom Penh usually compare three districts and quote one gross number each, with no statement of the rent, the unit size or the occupancy behind it. That is not a comparison, it is a set of claims.

This page puts the districts we cover in one table, states the assumption behind each band, and links every row to the area page so you can check the tenant story yourself. Citywide methodology stays in the Phnom Penh yield guide.

Which Phnom Penh district gives the best rental yield?

Gross yield across Phnom Penh ranges from about 4.9% to 8.2% in 2026, and the highest bands sit in affordable-segment stock in emerging districts rather than in the prime centre. Foreign buyers should read every figure below as gross, indicative, and dependent on the occupancy assumption stated in the next section.

District	Indicative entry, per sqm	Gross yield band	Tenant profile
BKK1	$2,800 to $3,500 premium stock	6% to 8%	Expatriate, corporate, long stay
Tonle Bassac and Koh Pich	Prime, near BKK1 levels	6% to 7%	Expatriate and regional
Toul Kork	Mid market	6% to 7%	Mixed local and regional
Toul Tom Poung	From about $1,067	6% to 7%	Local, regional, budget expat
Chroy Changvar	$1,200 to $1,600	4.9% to 6.75%, average near 5.83%	Local, some regional
Chroy Changvar, affordable segment	$1,000 to $1,300	7% to 9%	Local, price sensitive
Emerging districts including Prek Pnov	Below city average	Up to 8.2%	Local, corridor dependent

Three rules govern how to use that table, and they belong on the shortlist checklist:

• Compare bands, never point estimates, because published figures come from small comparable sets.
• Check the rent behind the yield: a band computed on an optimistic rent is a marketing number.
• Read the tenant profile column before the yield column, because tenant depth decides vacancy.

Area detail sits in BKK1, Tonle Bassac, Koh Pich, Toul Kork, Toul Tom Poung and Chroy Changvar.

Comparable sets are the weakness in every published district figure, including the ones above. A band like 4.9% to 6.75% for Chroy Changvar is derived from a modest number of units that happened to be listed and let during the sample period, in a district holding thousands of apartments. Two consequences follow. First, a specific unit can sit outside its district band in either direction without anything being wrong. Second, a seller quoting the top of a band as though it were the expected outcome is quoting the most favourable observation in a small sample. The correct use of a district table is to set expectations and to flag outliers, not to price an individual unit at $130,000, which is what the verification section below is for.

Why cheaper districts are not automatically higher yielding

Entry price and yield move together only when rent holds up, and in Phnom Penh rent falls faster than price as you move out from the centre. Chroy Changvar illustrates it exactly: entry at $1,200 to $1,600 per sqm against a gross average near 5.83%, which is below BKK1 despite roughly half the entry cost.

Driver	Effect in outer districts
Tenant pool	Thinner and more price sensitive
Achievable rent	Falls faster than the price discount
Vacancy between tenancies	Longer, so gross overstates cash
Competing new supply	Frequently heavier than in the centre
Buyer pool at resale	Mostly local, which narrows the exit

Run this checklist on any cheap-entry, high-yield claim:

1. Ask for two signed leases in the same building, not asking rents.
2. Ask how many units in the building are listed for rent today.
3. Ask what the tenant does for a living, because a single employer is concentration risk.
4. Model 2 months of vacancy rather than one, then recompute.

Our own underwriting treats the affordable-segment 7% to 9% band as achievable and fragile at the same time. The units that hit it are small, cheap and let quickly at a low absolute rent, which means the gross percentage looks strong while the cash figure stays modest: a $45,000 studio at 8% gross is $3,600 a year before any deduction, and a single 3 month void takes roughly $900 out of it. In the same year, a $130,000 BKK1 unit at 6.5% gross earns about $8,450 with a shorter expected void, so the lower percentage produces more than double the cash. Percentage yield answers a different question from cash yield, and buyers who optimise the percentage sometimes discover they optimised the wrong one entirely, in a district they never intended to own in.

Where expat tenant demand actually sits

Expatriate tenant demand concentrates in a handful of central districts, and that concentration is the biggest single determinant of vacancy for foreign buyers. BKK1 and Tonle Bassac hold the deepest pool, with rent comps running $480 to $950 a month on 42 to 52 sqm units across the corpus.

District	Expat demand depth	Practical implication
BKK1	Deepest	Shortest voids, highest rent per sqm
Tonle Bassac and Koh Pich	Strong	Comparable rent, newer stock
Toul Kork	Moderate	Family and long-stay tenants
Toul Tom Poung	Moderate, budget end	Price-led demand, faster turnover
Chroy Changvar	Limited	Local demand dominates
Outer and emerging	Thin	Corridor or employer dependent

Three questions decide whether a district suits your tenant plan, and each is a red flag if unanswerable:

• Who is the tenant, and does that employer or school still exist in 3 years?
• How far is the commute to the offices that pay expatriate rents?
• Does the building have management a corporate tenant will accept?

Occupancy, which converts these observations into a number you can model, is covered in the occupancy guide.

Tenant concentration deserves one worked illustration. A building in an outer district where 8 of 10 tenanted units house staff from a single factory or a single school is not a diversified rental market, it is one counterparty wearing ten names. If that employer relocates, the building’s rents reset together and the vacancy arrives for every owner at once, which is precisely when you cannot sell either. Central districts are not immune, and they are structurally better placed: an expatriate pool drawn from embassies, NGOs, regional offices and schools does not move as one. Foreign buyers reading an 8.2% band in an emerging district should therefore ask who the tenants are before asking what the yield is, and should treat a single dominant employer as a discount rather than a feature.

Insider tip: ask the building manager how many of the currently tenanted units are on corporate leases rather than individual ones. Corporate tenancies renew on a schedule and pay through a company, and a building with several of them has a demand floor that no yield table shows.

Yield against liquidity, district by district

Yield and liquidity trade against each other in Phnom Penh, and the trade is sharper for foreign buyers than in deeper markets. Central stock yields 6% to 8% and resells to both local and foreign buyers, while outer stock reaches 8.2% and resells mainly to local purchasers, which lengthens the exit.

District tier	Gross yield	Resale pool	Realistic sale window
Prime central	6% to 8%	Local and foreign	Shortest in the market
Mid market	6% to 7%	Local and foreign, price led	Moderate
Affordable central	6% to 9%	Mostly local	Longer
Emerging and outer	Up to 8.2%	Local, corridor dependent	Longest

Two consequences for a buyer scenario:

1. A 7 year hold makes outer-district yield defensible, because the exit has time to find a buyer.
2. A 3 year hold does not, whatever the yield band says, because the discount at exit erases the income advantage.

Resale evidence by segment sits in the resale liquidity guide, and district context in best areas to invest in Phnom Penh.

Liquidity is also why the yield ranking and the buying ranking differ. A district at 8.2% gross with a 12 to 18 month sale window is a income position you cannot easily reverse, while a district at 6.5% with a shorter window is closer to a liquid asset that happens to pay rent. Foreign buyers who expect to hold through one life change, a job move, a school year, a return home, are usually better served by the second, and the difference in annual cash between the two on comparable capital is smaller than the percentage gap suggests once vacancy is modelled honestly.

How to verify a district yield claim on one unit

Verification requires four data points and about a day, and it converts a district band into a number for the specific unit in front of you. Foreign buyers who run it routinely find the quoted yield falls by 1 to 2 percentage points once vacancy and building charges enter the model.

Data point	Where to get it	Why it matters
Two signed leases in the building	Building manager or agent	Establishes real rent, not asking rent
Current rental listings in the building	Portals, filtered by tower	Shows your competition today
Service charge per sqm	Management	Direct deduction from rent
Historical void periods	Manager, or previous owner	Sets your vacancy assumption

Then run the arithmetic in this order, which is the methodology we apply on every file:

1. Gross yield equals annual contracted rent divided by all-in purchase cost, not by the sticker price.
2. Deduct management at 8% to 12% of collected rent.
3. Deduct the service charge, the sinking fund and any annual property tax.
4. Deduct rental income tax, and only then compare districts.

The full stack, including rental income tax at 10% for residents and 14% for non-residents, sits in the net versus gross guide, and the years-to-recover model in the break-even guide.

What does a district yield band mean for the cash in your account?

Percentage bands hide absolute cash, and for foreign buyers the cash figure is what pays a service charge and funds a flight. A $45,000 studio at 8% gross produces $3,600 a year, while a $130,000 mid-market unit at 6.5% produces about $8,450, so the lower band delivers more than double the money.

Unit	Gross yield	Annual gross rent	Annual cash after typical deductions
$45,000 studio, outer district	8%	$3,600	Roughly $2,200 to $2,500
$90,000 mid-market one-bed	7%	$6,300	Roughly $4,000 to $4,400
$130,000 central one-bed	6.5%	$8,450	Roughly $5,400 to $5,900
$200,000 prime one-bed	6%	$12,000	Roughly $7,700 to $8,300

Deductions in the last column assume management at 8% to 12% of collected rent, one month of vacancy, the service charge and rental income tax; the full stack sits in the net versus gross guide.

Read the table as a buyer scenario check rather than a ranking:

• Does the absolute cash figure cover the annual cost of owning this specific unit?
• Would one extra void month change your answer?
• Is the percentage doing the work in your decision, or the money?

Fixed costs are what make small units fragile. A service charge, a sinking fund contribution and an annual filing cost roughly the same in administrative effort whether the unit earns $3,600 or $8,450, so the smaller unit carries a proportionally heavier load and reaches break-even later. That arithmetic is set out in the break-even guide.

Advantages and disadvantages by district tier

Each tier buys a different combination of income, vacancy risk and exit speed, and no tier is correct for every buyer.

Tier	Advantages	Disadvantages
Prime central	Deepest tenant pool, fastest resale, corporate tenants	Highest entry, yield capped near 8%
Mid market	Balance of rent and liquidity	Most competitive resale segment
Affordable central	Strong percentage yield, low capital at risk	Low absolute cash, faster turnover
Emerging and outer	Highest headline yield	Thin demand, slowest exit, corridor risk

Buyer scenarios by district

Four profiles cover most district questions we receive.

1. Income buyer with $130,000. Mid-market or prime central. Accept 6% to 7% gross for shorter voids.
2. Percentage-maximising buyer with $50,000. Affordable segment, up to 9% gross, and model 2 months of vacancy honestly. Expect roughly $2,200 to $2,500 of cash a year, which is tuition rather than income.
3. Buyer who may sell within 3 years. Central only, and read the liquidity guide before committing.
4. Buyer betting on a corridor. Emerging districts work only with a 7 year horizon and a specific thesis, such as the Techo airport corridor.

None of these four profiles is served by a single citywide yield number, which is the reason this page exists. A buyer holding $50,000 and a buyer holding $200,000 are shopping in different districts, for different tenants, with different exit windows, and the only figure they share is the one on a portal banner. Establish which profile you are first, then read the district table against it.

Red flags in a district yield pitch

Four claims should stop a district comparison for foreign buyers until they are evidenced, and each is checkable within a day. Every red flag below turns on the same missing item: the rent behind the percentage, which is what converts a 7% claim into $3,600 a year or into nothing.

Ask for all four in one message, then compare the answers against the table above:

Red flag	What it signals	What to ask for
A single yield percentage with no rent stated	Number cannot be verified	Rent, size and all-in cost
Gross yield presented as income	Deductions ignored	Net model with tax and charges
Yield quoted on asking rent	Optimistic by 10% or more	Two signed leases
”This district is up and coming” with no tenant	Thesis without demand	Names of employers or schools nearby

Four fixes turn a pitch into a comparison:

1. Insist on rent, unit size and all-in cost for every district quoted.
2. Recompute each band on 2 months of vacancy rather than one.
3. Deduct management, charges and rent tax before ranking districts.
4. Check resale listing history in each building you shortlist.

Our underwriting will not compare districts on gross yield alone, because gross is the number sellers control and net is the number owners receive. City-level methodology stays in the Phnom Penh yield guide, district prices in the Phnom Penh buyer pillar, and the honest market verdict in the 2026 investment verdict.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Phnom Penh district has the best rental yield? +

On indicative 2026 data, affordable-segment stock in emerging districts such as Chroy Changvar and Prek Pnov reaches up to 8.2% gross, while BKK1 sits at 6% to 8% with more reliable tenancy.

What gross yield does BKK1 give? +

About 6% to 8% on comparable units, with well-managed stock at the upper end. Premium BKK1 entry pricing runs $2,800 to $3,500 per sqm.

Are cheaper districts higher yielding? +

Not automatically. Chroy Changvar averages near 5.83% gross despite entry at $1,200 to $1,600 per sqm, because achievable rent falls faster than price.

Is district yield the same as net yield? +

No. Every band here is gross. Management at 8% to 12%, vacancy, service charge, sinking fund and rental income tax at 10% or 14% come out first.

Which district has the deepest tenant demand? +

BKK1 and Tonle Bassac for expatriates, Toul Kork and Toul Tom Poung for mixed local and regional demand. Outer districts depend on a single corridor or employer.

Which district resells fastest? +

Central districts with established foreign ownership, because both local and foreign buyers compete for the stock.

Can you check the yield claim on a specific unit? +

Send the tower, unit size and quoted rent. We return live comparables in the same building, gross and net, with the vacancy assumption stated.