Money and payments
Bakong Tourists
The central bank's wallet for visitors: pay by scanning Cambodia's KHQR codes without a Cambodian bank account.
What it is
Almost every till, market stall and tuk-tuk driver in Cambodia displays a square black-and-white code called KHQR. It is a single national standard, so one code works with every Cambodian bank app, which is why a shop only ever shows one. Bakong is the payment network behind it, run by the National Bank of Cambodia. Bakong Tourists is the central bank's own app for visitors: you register with an email address, put money in, and then scan the KHQR code on the counter instead of finding cash. It also generates a KHQR code to receive money, sends money to a Cambodian bank account, keeps a transaction history and exchanges between US dollars and riel.
Setting it up
The central bank's own getting-started steps are: install the app, register an account with an email address, top up at the airport or at your hotel, then pay. Linking a Visa card issued in your home country was launched as an additional way to load the wallet in January 2025. Fees, top-up limits and which card networks currently work are not published on the sources we can read, so check them in the app before you rely on it.
GlobeScraper's take
Useful once you are on the ground rather than before you fly, because you cannot load it usefully until you are here. It is worth the effort mainly if you are staying more than a few days: for a short trip, cash still works everywhere.
What we checked
Publisher, registration by email, the airport or hotel top-up route and the app's functions come from the National Bank of Cambodia's own current App Store listing, read 15 Aug 2026. Visa card linking rests on a January 2025 press release and is described as a launch, not as current coverage. Fees and limits are not published on either source, so this page does not imply there are none. An earlier version described card linking as the main way to fund the wallet; the central bank's own instructions put topping up at the airport or hotel first.
Sources
Bakong Tourists on the App Store (Official platform)
The central bank's own current description of the app: who publishes it, what it does and the registration and top-up steps it states.
Bakong (National Bank of Cambodia) (Cambodian government)
What Bakong and KHQR are as national payment infrastructure.
Visa and NBC: launch of the Bakong Tourists app (Reputable secondary source)
A January 2025 launch announcement of Visa card linking. Evidences that the capability was launched, not its current fees, limits or card coverage.
GlobeScraper editorial (GlobeScraper editorial)
Our own description and judgement. Supports no factual claim on its own.