Healthcare in Cambodia for expats and visitors

Healthcare is the part of moving to Cambodia that people put off thinking about, right up until the evening they actually need it. The honest summary is that Phnom Penh and Siem Reap have private hospitals that deal with foreigners all day long and handle everyday problems perfectly well, and that your options narrow fast once you leave them. The useful thing is not to memorise all of this. It is to know where you would go, and who you would ring, before anything happens.

Quick take

• Private hospitals in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap are where most foreigners go. They are used to treating expats and tourists and they have English-speaking staff.
• Outside those two cities your options narrow sharply, and the US State Department describes medical care beyond them as almost non-existent.
• You pay for your own care. There is no reciprocal healthcare agreement with the UK, and insurers normally have to approve treatment before a hospital bills them.
• Serious cases can involve transfer abroad. Where and whether is a clinical call made at the time, not something you pick in advance.
• Vaccination advice is individual. Hepatitis A and typhoid are recommended for most travellers; the rest depends on your itinerary and history.
• Malaria risk is about where you go. There is no risk in Phnom Penh, and the concern is rural and forested areas.
• Save the emergency numbers and your insurer's hotline before you fly.

How healthcare in Cambodia actually works

There are effectively two systems. Public hospitals serve the population at very low cost, and the staff do a great deal with limited resources, but FCDO notes that staff in public hospitals often speak little or no English. Private and international hospitals are where most foreigners end up, and they are concentrated in Phnom Penh and, to a lesser extent, Siem Reap.

The bigger difference is not really public versus private. It is geography. In Phnom Penh you have several hospitals with emergency departments, imaging and intensive care. An hour or two into the provinces and the realistic plan becomes getting to a city. The US State Department puts it bluntly: both cities have a limited number of internationally run facilities that provide basic care and stabilisation, and medical care outside them is almost non-existent.

One number explains a lot about how this feels in practice. WHO puts the share of Cambodian health spending that comes straight out of patients' pockets at 60.6% in 2023. Paying at the point of care is simply the norm, which is why the question of who settles your bill deserves sorting out before you need an answer.

Source: WHO Global Health Observatory, US Department of State and FCDO · checked 9 Aug 2026

Where foreigners actually go

The facilities below all appear on the FCDO's own list of English-speaking doctors and medical facilities in Cambodia, and the details come from that list. Two things worth being clear about: FCDO says explicitly that inclusion is not an endorsement, and the information on it is supplied by the providers themselves. It is a starting point for working out where you would go, not a ranking, and GlobeScraper is not in a position to tell you which hospital is clinically better.

Phnom Penh

• Royal Phnom Penh Hospital

  Private hospital

  Emergency

  24/7 emergency line listed

  Language

  English-speaking staff, plus Chinese, Thai and Japanese interpreters

  Listed services

  Medical evacuation (air ambulance), ambulance, ICU, MRI and CT

  Tells FCDO it is a branch of Bangkok Hospital in Thailand and the first JCI-accredited hospital in Cambodia.

  Royal Phnom Penh Hospital website

• Raffles Medical Phnom Penh

  Private clinic

  Emergency

  Open 24/7, Sunday emergency room only

  Language

  English-speaking staff

  Listed services

  Accident and emergency, family medicine, vaccinations, venereology, on-site X-ray and laboratory, specialist referral and evacuation

  This is the clinic that used to trade as the International SOS clinic; it was rebranded to Raffles Medical in 2016.

  Raffles Medical Phnom Penh website

• Central Hospital

  Private hospital

  Emergency

  Emergency, ICU, imaging and laboratory listed as 24/7

  Language

  Mostly English-speaking staff

  Listed services

  Medical evacuation (land and air), haemodialysis, surgery, general medicine

  Central Hospital website

• Calmette Hospital

  Public hospital, semi-autonomous

  Listed services

  Polyclinics, ambulance, ICU, MRI and CT scanner

  Described by FCDO as the biggest public hospital in Cambodia. Many doctors speak French, and the directory notes that foreigners can pay up to twice what local patients pay.

  Calmette Hospital website

Siem Reap

• Royal Angkor International Hospital

  Private hospital

  Emergency

  Emergency service with ambulance and air evacuation, and a dedicated emergency number

  Language

  English-speaking staff

  Listed services

  ICU, CT scan, X-ray, surgery, internal medicine, cardiology

  Royal Angkor International Hospital website

Outside the main cities

This is where planning ahead earns its keep. There is a good deal less available, and the practical question becomes how quickly you could reach Phnom Penh. One example of what does exist:

• Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital

  Private hospital

  Emergency

  Emergency number listed; the outpatient department is closed at weekends

  Language

  English-speaking staff

  Listed services

  Emergency, ambulance, surgery, maternity, paediatrics, radiology, laboratory

  Worth knowing about if you are on the south coast, where the options thin out quickly.

  Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital website

Source: FCDO list of English-speaking doctors in Cambodia · checked 9 Aug 2026

What treatment costs

You will find confident dollar figures for Cambodian healthcare all over the internet. Treat them carefully. Private hospitals here do not publish tariffs, what you pay depends on the facility and on what is actually wrong with you, and forum numbers get repeated until they look like national averages. This guide is not going to add to that pile.

What can be said with confidence is how the money works:

• You are liable for your own bills. FCDO states that Cambodia and the UK have no reciprocal healthcare agreement and that you will be liable for any medical fees you incur.
• Insurance is usually approved, not just accepted. Across the FCDO directory the payment line is consistently cash, card, or insurance that must be approved by the insurance company. Treat direct billing as something to confirm with your insurer and the hospital, not something to assume.
• Foreigner pricing is real in places. The directory records that at Calmette, foreigners can in some cases pay up to twice what local patients pay.

For anything planned rather than urgent, the sequence that saves arguments later is: ring the facility and ask for an estimate, ask your insurer whether it needs to pre-authorise, then ask both whether they will settle directly with each other.

Source: FCDO Cambodia travel advice and provider directory · checked 9 Aug 2026

When serious treatment means going elsewhere

Medical evacuation is the thing people most want a straight answer on, so here is the straight answer: it is a real possibility, and almost nothing about it is fixed in advance.

Several Cambodian hospitals list evacuation among their own services. Royal Phnom Penh Hospital records air ambulance capability, Central Hospital lists medical evacuation by land and air, and Royal Angkor International Hospital lists an air evacuation system. So the infrastructure exists and is used.

What this guide will not do is tell you where you would be taken or what it would cost. The destination is a clinical decision made by the treating doctors together with your insurer's assistance team, based on what is wrong with you and what is available at the time. And air ambulance providers price by quote; the US Embassy's own list of evacuation companies is a list of firms to request a quote from. A specific dollar range would be invented precision on a decision nobody makes in advance.

The part that is actually actionable: evacuation is expensive enough that it is the single clearest reason to hold cover that names it explicitly. CDC makes the same point for the same reason, noting that if you are seriously injured, emergency care may not be available or may not meet the standards you are used to, and that trauma centres are uncommon outside urban areas.

Source: FCDO provider directory, US Embassy Phnom Penh and CDC · checked 9 Aug 2026

Travel medical cover, and what it costs

Insurance is not the interesting part of planning a trip to Cambodia. It is, however, one of the few things here you really do not want to have misunderstood while sitting in a hospital reception. Two things worth checking on any policy, because they are the two that catch people out in Cambodia specifically: whether emergency medical evacuation is named explicitly rather than implied, and how the policy treats motorbike accidents. Some policies exclude riding entirely, or require a licence valid for the bike you are on, and road injuries are a common reason foreigners need serious care here.

If you are coming for a trip rather than moving here, this is a sensible point to look at an actual number instead of reading about insurance in the abstract. SafetyWing provides the calculator below, so you can put in your age and dates and see its current price directly rather than trusting a figure typed into an article months ago.

Travel insurance or expat health insurance?

These solve different problems, and picking the wrong one is a common and expensive mistake.

Visiting. Travel medical insurance is built around trips. It is designed for treatment you did not plan for, and getting you home or to appropriate care if something serious happens. If that is your situation, the guide on travel insurance for Cambodia goes into what to compare.

Living here. Once Cambodia is where you live rather than somewhere you are visiting, travel policies fit badly. They tend to cap trip length and assume you have a home country to be repatriated to, and routine care is usually not the point of them. International or expat health insurance is the category you want, and expat health insurance for Cambodia covers that ground. FCDO also notes that if you are out of the UK for a prolonged period you may be charged by the NHS for care back home, which surprises people.

Vaccinations and travel health preparation

Most articles hand you a short list of jabs to get and leave it there. That sounds decisive but it is not how travel health advice works. What you need depends on your vaccination history, your itinerary, how long you are staying, where you will be sleeping and what you will be doing. The categories below are how the official guidance is actually organised, which is more useful than a list.

• Routine, for everyone. Being up to date on the standard schedule, including MMR. Measles risk in Cambodia is assessed as higher than in the UK, and CDC currently carries a global measles notice.
• Recommended for most travellers. Hepatitis A and typhoid. UK guidance also flags a tetanus booster if your last dose was more than ten years ago and you are heading somewhere medical facilities may be limited.
• Depends on you and your trip. Hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, rabies and BCG. Japanese encephalitis occurs countrywide with seasonal peaks between May and October, and vaccination is generally considered for longer stays, rural travel or repeat visits rather than a short city trip.
• An actual entry requirement. There is no yellow fever risk in Cambodia, but a yellow fever certificate is required if you are arriving from a country with yellow fever risk, including transits of more than 12 hours.

On timing, the two official sources differ slightly and both are worth taking seriously: FCDO suggests checking vaccine recommendations at least eight weeks before you travel, while TravelHealthPro suggests booking a travel health appointment at least four to six weeks ahead. If you have left it later than that, go anyway, because an appointment is still worth having.

Source: TravelHealthPro Cambodia and CDC Cambodia · checked 9 Aug 2026

Malaria, dengue, rabies and the rest

Malaria

"Cambodia has malaria" is true and almost useless, because the risk is entirely about where you actually go. UK guidance records no risk in Phnom Penh, very low risk in the Angkor Wat temple complexes, around Tonle Sap and in Siem Reap, and low risk elsewhere in the country, with bite avoidance recommended throughout. CDC frames it slightly differently and recommends antimalarial tablets for travellers going to rural and forested areas specifically, noting no or negligible transmission in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and at Angkor Wat.

The two agencies emphasise different things, which is genuinely useful to know rather than something to paper over: the UK view treats most Cambodian itineraries as bite avoidance rather than tablets, the US view leans towards tablets for rural and forested trips. One more detail that matters if you are heading west: mefloquine resistance is widespread in the provinces bordering Thailand. Which antimalarial, if any, is a conversation for a travel health professional who knows your itinerary.

Dengue

Dengue is spread by mosquitoes that bite mainly during the day and are most common in towns and cities, which is worth knowing because people associate mosquito risk with evenings and jungles. CDC currently carries a global dengue notice at its lowest level, practise usual precautions, and describes dengue as a year-round risk in many parts of the world.

One thing worth correcting, because the internet is full of the old version: there is a dengue vaccine. UK guidance says it can be considered for people aged four and over who have had dengue before and are travelling to a risk area, and that vaccinating someone who has not had it before is exceptional and needs expert advice. So for most travellers it is still not the answer and avoiding daytime bites is, but "there is no vaccine" is out of date.

Rabies

CDC states that dogs infected with rabies are commonly found in Cambodia, and UK guidance records rabies in domestic animals here. The practical rule is to avoid contact with animals, including the friendly ones.

If you are bitten, scratched or licked on broken skin, wash the wound thoroughly and seek urgent local medical assessment even if it looks trivial. That last part is the official wording and it is deliberate. There is also a practical reason to think about pre-exposure vaccination if you will be here a while or somewhere remote: a full pre-exposure course shortens the treatment you need afterwards and removes the need for rabies immunoglobulin, which is in short supply worldwide.

Food, water and stomach upsets

Every Southeast Asia article tells you a stomach bug is inevitable. It is not, and plenty of people spend months here without one. The precautions are the ordinary ones: take care with food and water hygiene, stick to bottled or properly filtered water, and be more careful where sanitation is likely to be poor. Worth noting that hepatitis A and typhoid, the two vaccines recommended for most travellers here, are both food and water borne. That tells you where the risk that actually matters sits, and it is not in a couple of rough days.

Source: CDC Cambodia and TravelHealthPro Cambodia · checked 9 Aug 2026

Bringing medication

This one catches people out, because the assumption is that a prescription from home travels with you. It does not automatically.

• Some medicines that are routine in the UK may be unavailable in Cambodia, and some may be prohibited from entering the country.
• A permit is required to bring in drugs containing psychotropic or narcotic substances. That is a formal requirement, not a formality.
• Bring enough for the trip plus a margin, keep medicines in their original labelled packaging, and carry a copy of the prescription.
• CDC also warns that in some countries medicines bought locally can be substandard or counterfeit, which is a reason to bring what you rely on rather than plan to buy it.

If you take anything regularly, check the position for your specific medicine before you fly. TravelHealthPro's guidance on travelling with medicines is the practical starting point, and the Cambodian embassy is who FCDO points you to on import rules.

Sexual health and testing

It comes up, it is health information like any other, and knowing where to go beats guessing. Two of the clinics on the FCDO list state relevant services directly: Raffles Medical Phnom Penh lists venereology among its services, and Advance European Medicare Center lists sexual health. The Institut Pasteur du Cambodge in Phnom Penh also runs a medical biology laboratory offering analyses to the public, alongside an international vaccination centre.

What this guide will not do is quote prices or turnaround times, or promise that walk-ins are fine. Those details move, and expat-forum versions of them are often years old or attached to the wrong clinic entirely. Ring ahead and ask: it is one phone call and the answer will be current.

The healthcare risk nobody plans for

If you want one paragraph that changes your actual odds, it is this one. CDC states that motor vehicle crashes are the number one killer of healthy US citizens in foreign countries, and road injuries are a common reason foreigners here end up needing serious care. CDC's advice for destinations like this includes always wearing a helmet on a motorbike or bicycle and bringing one from home if needed, avoiding driving at night because street lighting in parts of Cambodia can be poor, and being wary of motorbike taxis.

This connects straight back to insurance, which is why it belongs on a healthcare page rather than only in a general safety guide. Check what your policy says about riding before you rent anything. For the broader picture on crime and personal safety, the Phnom Penh travel safety guide covers that ground properly.

If you are staying long term

Teachers, remote workers and anyone else here for months rather than weeks should do a few things differently.

• Work out where you would go before you need to, and register with a clinic early rather than choosing one while feeling awful.
• Move to international or expat health insurance rather than rolling short travel policies over.
• Ask your school or employer what cover they actually provide, and read it. Some provide very little.
• Keep your insurer's emergency number, your clinic and your embassy saved somewhere you can find them one-handed.

If you are still in the planning stage, the start here guide covers the rest of the move.

Before you arrive

• Book a travel health appointment and take your vaccination history with you.
• Check whether a yellow fever certificate applies to your route, including long transits.
• Get cover that names emergency medical evacuation explicitly.
• Check how that policy treats motorbike accidents.
• Check the rules for any medication you take, and bring it in original packaging.
• Save 119for an ambulance, your insurer's emergency line, and one hospital in the city you are staying in.
• Read the current FCDO advice shortly before you fly, not months ahead.

FAQ

Sources, and how this guide is kept current

Health guidance changes, and an article that quietly ages is worse than no article. So the facts on this page that can move are tied to official sources, and those sources are checked automatically every day.

Some of it is genuinely machine readable. The emergency numbers above are read from the GOV.UK Content API rather than typed in here, so if FCDO changes one, the change is detected instead of a stale number quietly outliving its source. The same goes for the current travel advice state and the WHO spending figure. Other sources, including CDC and TravelHealthPro, publish no suitable API, so they are monitored for change and read by a person.

What deliberately does not happen is automatic rewriting. If CDC updates its Cambodia page, that raises a flag for a human to re-read it. Nothing on this page rewrites medical wording on its own, because that would be a way to publish unreviewed medical claims at scale. Detection is automated; interpretation is not.

None of this makes the page a substitute for advice about you. For anything specific to your health, itinerary or medication, speak to a travel health professional or your doctor.

• CDC Cambodia Traveler View

  US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · monitored for change

• FCDO list of English-speaking doctors in Cambodia

  UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office · read through a public API · publisher last updated 16 Jan 2026

• FCDO Cambodia travel advice

  UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office · read through a public API · publisher last updated 19 Mar 2026

• TravelHealthPro Cambodia

  NaTHNaC (National Travel Health Network and Centre) · monitored for change

• WHO Global Health Observatory: out-of-pocket health spending

  World Health Organization · read through a public API

CDC travel health notices in force for Cambodia when this page was last checked: Global Dengue (Level 1 Practice Usual Precautions, updated June 23, 2026); Global Measles (Level 1 Practice Usual Precautions, updated May 28, 2025).