The Landlord's Guide to Cambodian Tenancy: Leases, Deposits, and the Eviction Nobody Fast-Tracks

Our property-management guide covers who runs your unit; this one covers the legal relationship they run it inside. Cambodia is a landlord’s market in a specific, double-edged sense: no rent control, no tenancy act, near-total freedom of contract — and therefore almost no statutory machinery to save a landlord who wrote a thin lease. The law gives you a frame; everything that will actually decide a dispute is in the document you sign and the paper you keep. This guide is the landlord’s side of that bargain. Citations are marked [S-NNN]; the source list is at the end.

The legal frame: thin statute, thick contract

There is no single Cambodian landlord-tenant law. The trade’s own guidance is blunt: “there isn’t a strict regulatory framework in place” — market practice governs where the contract is silent [S-212]. What the Civil Code and land framework do fix is worth knowing precisely [S-210]:

• The 15-year line. Leases split at fifteen years: below it, ordinary short-term tenancies; at or above it, long-term leases that can be registered on the title and asserted as in-rem rights — the same registered-lease machinery foreign buyers use to hold land [S-210] [S-015]. Duration caps at 50 years, renewable once for up to 50 more [S-210].
• Automatic renewal is the default. A lease renews at term unless the contract says otherwise or notice is given — at least three months before term for a building, one year for land [S-210]. A landlord who wants a clean term-end writes it into the contract rather than relying on the default.
• The lease follows the property. An occupying tenant’s lease “may be asserted against a subsequent acquirer” [S-210] — selling your tenanted unit transfers the tenancy with it, and buying a resale unit means inheriting whatever lease is in place. Price both directions of that rule.

Everything else — deposits, repairs, default, early exit — is whatever your contract says. Which makes the contract the real subject of this guide.

The contract is the law you live under

The working paper stack for a Cambodian residential let is three documents [S-211]:

1. The lease agreement, covering at minimum: payment method, lease period, property description and address, termination clause, furniture and maintenance responsibilities, governing law, transfer of ownership, utilities, and building rules [S-211]. Two clauses deserve the most drafting attention because the statute gives you nothing there: default (what happens, and when, if rent stops) and early termination — the trade’s own assessment is that early-exit conditions “are not set in stone” in Cambodian practice, with outcomes ranging from deposit forfeiture to a one-month notice [S-212]. Write the answer; don’t litigate it later. And watch the penalty-clause asymmetry habit this market imports into every contract type [S-095].
2. The inventory list, with photographic or video evidence of condition at handover [S-211] — the difference between a deposit deduction and a deposit argument.
3. The utility records — meters, accounts, and the paper trail for water, electricity, gas and services the tenant takes over [S-211].

On money, the norms are settled even where the law is silent [S-212]: rent monthly in advance; deposits of one month on a six-month contract, two months on a twelve-month, five to six months on multi-year terms — refundable without interest, less documented breach costs. In a jurisdiction with no fast eviction, the deposit is your enforcement mechanism; size it to the term, not to what the agent says closes deals.

Eviction: the section with no good news

Read the dispute-system map before letting to anyone, because it is the enforcement backdrop to every clause above: no operating commercial courts, first-instance through appeal timelines measured in years for contested matters [S-168] [S-170], and no summary-eviction procedure waiting to rescue a landlord from a defaulting tenant. The honest consequences:

• Prevention is the strategy. Screening, advance rent, term-sized deposits and explicit default clauses do the work courts do elsewhere.
• Money not yet paid is your leverage — the same enforcement principle that runs through every Cambodian contract. A tenant one month in advance with two months on deposit has three months of their own money arguing for good behaviour.
• Self-help has limits. Lockouts and utility cuts against an occupying tenant convert a money dispute into a liability dispute. The professional version is the managed exit: negotiated departure against deposit settlement, documented like everything else.

The tax line

Rental income is withheld at 10% of gross rent for Cambodian-citizen owners and 14% for foreign owners, per the agreement [S-154] [S-089]. The mechanics depend on who your tenant is: registered companies withhold and remit themselves; individual-to-individual lets are declared by the owner; corporate landlords charge 10% VAT with invoices and need GDT registration and a TIN [S-154]. File as income arrives, not when convenient — the receipts are simultaneously your repatriation paperwork when the accumulated rent eventually moves abroad, and your basis evidence when the 2027 CGT meets your exit.

The operating reality

Set expectations with the market’s own numbers: citywide rental vacancy runs around 15% per project [S-026], Phnom Penh rents at $9–13/sqm a month [S-090], and remote owners typically pay a manager around 10% of rent [S-091]. Before any of it, check what your building and your own lease allow: owners’-association rules and subletting clauses bind a landlord the way they bind an Airbnb host [S-153] — and the short-term overlay is a different business with different economics, not a clause to drift into.

The takeaway

Cambodian tenancy law gives a landlord freedom and nothing else: a thin Civil Code frame — the 15-year registration line, default renewal unless notice runs three months to a year, leases that follow the property [S-210] — wrapped around near-total freedom of contract in a market whose own trade press calls the regulatory framework loose [S-212]. The competent landlord responds by building the missing statute privately: a lease that answers default and early exit explicitly [S-211], a photographic inventory, term-sized deposits of one to six months [S-212], rent in advance, taxes filed at 10% or 14% as they fall due [S-154], and a screening standard that treats eviction as the failure mode it is in a court system this slow [S-168]. None of this is legal advice; residential practice varies by building, district and counterparty, so have a Cambodian lawyer review the lease that will be doing your law’s job.

Sources

• [S-015] BNG Legal — Long Term Leases in Cambodia — perpetual lease 15–50 years; registration required for enforceability against third parties.
• [S-026] IPS Cambodia — Phnom Penh Condo Market Trends 2025 — ~15% average per-project rental vacancy.
• [S-089] IPS Cambodia — Cambodia Property Tax Guide — 10% resident / 14% non-resident rental withholding.
• [S-090] Global Property Guide — Cambodia Rental Yields — Phnom Penh rents ~$9–13/sqm/month.
• [S-091] IPS Cambodia — The True Cost of Ownership — ~10% of rent for remote management.
• [S-095] IPS Cambodia — Behind the Fine Print: the SPA in Cambodia — penalty-clause asymmetry; contractual enforcement context.
• [S-153] IPS Cambodia — Becoming an Airbnb Host in Cambodia — owners’-association rules and lease subletting clauses as binding constraints.
• [S-154] IPS Cambodia — Navigating Rental Property Taxes in Cambodia — 10% (citizens) vs 14% (foreign owners) on gross rent per the agreement; company tenants withhold and remit, individual-to-individual declared by owner; corporate rentals charge 10% VAT with invoices; GDT registration/TIN.
• [S-168] Cambodia Counsel — Dispute Resolution FAQ — court structure; no operating commercial courts; precedent’s limited role.
• [S-170] Reed Smith — Inside Cambodia’s International Arbitration Scene — enforcement actions running six months to two-three years through appeals.
• [S-210] Cambodia Counsel — Rights Over Land — 15-year threshold for long-term leases; registration via land offices protecting the lessee’s in-rem right against third-party purchasers; occupying lessee’s lease assertable against a subsequent acquirer; automatic renewal absent written provision or notice at least three months (building) / one year (land) before term; Civil Code 50-year cap with one renewal up to 50 further years.
• [S-211] IPS Cambodia — What Are The Paperworks Involved in Leasing Out Condo & Apartment in Cambodia? — the three-document stack: lease agreement (payment method, period, description/address, termination clause, furniture/maintenance, governing law, transfer of ownership, utilities, building rules), inventory list with photographic/video condition evidence, utility records.
• [S-212] Realestate.com.kh — How Does Rental Payment And Deposit Work in Cambodia? — deposits ~1 month (6-month contract) / 2 months (12-month) / 5–6 months (multi-year); refundable without interest less breach deductions; rent monthly in advance; early-termination conditions “not set in stone”; “there isn’t a strict regulatory framework in place.”