All 7 Thailand-Cambodia Land Borders: Closed Status and What Americans Can Do Instead

The bottom line, and why the map changed in 2026

If you have been planning a Thailand-and-Cambodia trip off older guides, blog posts, or message-board threads, you have probably seen one route repeated with total confidence: bus or train from Bangkok, cross the land border at Poipet, carry on to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat the same afternoon. For two decades that was one of the most popular overland trips in Southeast Asia. In 2026 it does not run. Every Thailand-Cambodia land border has been closed since June 2025, the closure has held steady ever since, and the Thai Navy publicly denied a reopening as recently as April 2026.

This trips up US travelers because nothing about it is visible until you are standing at the crossing. Your flights into Thailand are normal, your Cambodia eVisa is approved and sitting in your inbox, and on paper the plan looks fine. The problem is purely the border itself — it is physically shut to overland tourist traffic, so there is nowhere to hand the visa over even though the document is completely valid. Plan around the old map and you can lose a day, a connection, or an entire leg of your trip.

I head the Cambodia Airports & Arrivals desk here, and the Thailand land closure is the single most frequent surprise I field from Americans mid-planning. This guide is the definitive 2026 reference: which crossings are affected, why the closure happened, what it does and does not do to your eVisa, the air and overland routes that work, and the exact entry steps once you land. When you are ready, you can apply and have your eVisa as a printable PDF before you finalize a single booking. For the full country picture, the main Cambodia visa for US citizens hub pulls cost, documents, and processing together in one place.

1. 1
   Treat the Thai land border as closed

   All seven Thailand-Cambodia land crossings have been closed since June 2025 and remain shut in 2026 with no confirmed reopening date.

2. 2
   Do not book overland transport into Cambodia

   Skip any bus or transfer that claims to cross at Poipet or Cham Yeam — it is not operating for tourist entry and you will be turned back.

3. 3
   Fly the Thailand leg instead

   Book a short Bangkok flight into Siem Reap-Angkor (SAI), Techo International (KTI), or Sihanouk (KOS).

4. 4
   Apply for your Cambodia eVisa

   Tourist eVisa is $80 all-in and Business eVisa is $90 all-in, approved in 3–5 days as a printable PDF.

5. 5
   File your e-Arrival Card

   Complete the separate, mandatory e-Arrival Card — 14 fields, $20 — within 7 days before you fly.

6. 6
   Land and present at the airport

   Your eVisa is accepted on arrival at KTI, SAI, or KOS for a 30-day single-entry stay, valid 3 months from issue.

All seven crossings, and the two you were probably planning to use

When the border closed in June 2025, it closed in full. This was not one checkpoint going dark while the rest stayed open — all seven official Thailand-Cambodia land crossings shut to ordinary tourist traffic at the same time. If your route leaned on any single one of them, it leaned on a crossing that is not operating for travelers entering Cambodia by land in 2026.

Two of them are the ones US travelers almost always have in mind. Poipet, opposite Aranyaprathet, is the big one — the crossing on the Bangkok-to-Siem Reap road, the gateway that carried the backpacker overland route for twenty years. Cham Yeam, near the coast opposite Hat Lek, is the second most common, used by travelers running the Bangkok-to-Sihanoukville or Koh Kong beach route. Both are closed. The remaining five crossings are smaller and more regional, but the rule is uniform: none of them are open for tourist land entry into Cambodia, and the closure applies in both directions.

The nuance that matters most is that this is geography, not paperwork. Your Cambodia eVisa is a valid single-entry document the day it is approved — the closure does not touch the visa at all. There is simply no open Thai land crossing where you can present it right now. That distinction changes the fix: it is not a different visa or a workaround at the gate, it is a different way into the country.

Why the border closed, and how long it is likely to stay shut

The closure traces back to a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia that escalated in mid-2025. Rather than keep a partial flow of traffic running through contested points, both sides sealed the land crossings to ordinary travelers. The practical effect for tourists is straightforward even when the politics are not: the gates are shut, and they have stayed shut for a full year as of this writing.

The honest planning answer is that there is no confirmed reopening date. The situation has been static for around twelve months, and the most recent signal cuts against an early reopening — the Thai Navy publicly denied reports of a reopening in April 2026. Talk of the border easing has come and gone before without a firm change on the ground, and a date floated one month can slip the next. For trip planning, that means one thing: do not build an itinerary that assumes the border reopens partway through your travels. If it reopens while you are in the region, treat it as a bonus you can use — not something to plan around.

For Americans, the authoritative place to confirm current status before you book is the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, both of which post entry-and-exit guidance for Cambodia and flag active border situations. We track the same sources and update this page when the status moves. Until then, treat the Thailand land border as closed and route around it. If you want the running-status view in one place, our dedicated Cambodia-Thailand border reopening status for US travelers page is updated as the situation changes.

What the closure means for a Thailand-and-Cambodia trip

The good news is that pairing Thailand and Cambodia is still completely doable in 2026 — you just connect them in the air rather than on the ground. The flights are short, frequent, and cheap by long-haul standards, and they drop you straight into a Cambodian airport where your eVisa is accepted on arrival. For most US itineraries, the air leg actually saves time over the old land route, which meant a long road transfer plus a slow crossing on foot, often with touts and queue scams at Poipet that became a story in their own right.

Here is how the common pairings work now. Bangkok to Siem Reap is the direct replacement for the old Poipet overland run — about an hour in the air, landing at Siem Reap-Angkor International (SAI), a short drive from the temples. Bangkok to Phnom Penh lands you at Techo International (KTI), the new capital airport that replaced the old Phnom Penh field (PNH) on 9 September 2025. Bangkok to Sihanoukville reaches Sihanouk International (KOS) on the south coast, the air version of the old Cham Yeam beach route. In every case your eVisa is checked the moment you land, and you skip the land border entirely.

• Temple-first trip: fly Bangkok to Siem Reap (SAI) and start at Angkor Wat — no land transfer, no closed crossing, eVisa accepted on arrival.
• Capital trip: fly Bangkok to Phnom Penh (KTI), the Techo International field that replaced the old PNH airport in September 2025.
• Coast and islands: fly Bangkok to Sihanoukville (KOS) rather than driving toward the closed Cham Yeam crossing on the Koh Kong road.
• Ground transport that claims to cross the land border: do not book it. Operators occasionally still advertise the old Poipet run — it is not operating for tourist entry, and you will be turned back at the gate.

If you are weighing the trade-offs directly — cost, time, hassle — our breakdown of flying versus the land border, and which is better for US citizens, runs the numbers now that the Thai crossings are off the table. The headline is that the math has shifted: with the land route gone, a short Bangkok-to-Siem Reap hop is no longer just faster, it is the only working option for the Thailand leg.

The overland routes that still work in 2026

If overland travel is the whole point of your trip — and for a lot of Americans doing the Indochina loop, it is — you have not lost it. The Thailand land legs are off the table, but the Vietnam and Laos crossings remain open and eVisa-eligible, so the classic loop still runs by land everywhere except the Thai border. You build the route so the Thailand portion is flown and the rest is overland.

From Vietnam, the major crossings used by Mekong-route travelers accept the eVisa, including Bavet on the Ho Chi Minh City road and the Kaam Samnor river crossing on the Mekong fast-boat route. That is the Saigon-to-Phnom Penh overland or river leg, and it works on an eVisa in 2026. From Laos, the Trapeang Kriel crossing in the north — the standard route down from southern Laos and the 4,000 Islands — is also eVisa-eligible. A loop that runs Vietnam to Cambodia to Laos, or any subset of it, is fully open on the ground.

The one caveat for any land crossing is to confirm your exact crossing is on the eVisa-eligible list before you commit, because a small regional border your map shows may not be covered even when a nearby major one is. Carrier and boat staff do not always know the rule. The safe default for anyone unsure is to fly into KTI, SAI, or KOS, where acceptance is never in question. If you are pairing Cambodia with Vietnam specifically, our Cambodia and Vietnam visa combo for Americans walks through both visas and the overland Bavet leg end to end.

Your eVisa is unaffected — what actually changes

The most important thing to internalize is that the border closure changes your route, not your visa. You still apply for the same Cambodia eVisa, it is still valid for three months from issue, and it still gives you a 30-day single-entry stay. The Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in and the Business eVisa is $90 USD, both approved in 3–5 days and delivered as a printable PDF by email. None of that moves because of the Thai border. The only thing that changes is the leg of the journey: air instead of land.

Where Americans occasionally get confused is the word "eligible." The Cambodia eVisa is accepted at the three international airports and at a defined set of land and river crossings — and none of the eligible land crossings are on the Thai border, because none of the Thai crossings are open. So the eVisa is valid; the place you would have used it is closed. That is the whole of it. There is no special "land-border eVisa," no different document that opens the Thai gates, and no version of the visa that changes the closure. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

It is worth saying plainly because the misconception is common: the issue is not that your eVisa "is not valid" at the Thai land border — it is that the Thai land border is shut to everyone. Our note on why the eVisa is not usable at the Thai land border for US citizens unpacks the difference, since the distinction decides whether you go looking for a different visa (you should not) or simply rebook the leg as a flight (you should).

Putting your route together

The clean version, for any American planning a 2026 trip: the Thailand-Cambodia land border is closed — all seven crossings, since June 2025, with no confirmed reopening date and a Thai Navy denial of reopening as recently as April 2026. You cannot cross overland from Thailand on any visa, so connect the two countries by air. Your eVisa is unaffected and is accepted at all three Cambodian airports the moment you land. If you want an overland leg, run it through Vietnam or Laos at a confirmed eVisa-eligible crossing instead. Fly the Thailand portion, and the rest of the loop is yours.

For the specific Bangkok-to-Siem Reap swap that most US travelers need, our guide on flying Bangkok to Siem Reap instead of the land border for US citizens covers the exact flights, timing, and arrival flow so you can rebook the leg in one sitting. It is the single most common rebooking we see, and it takes about an hour in the air to replace a half-day overland slog that no longer runs.

Next steps and related reading for Americans: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, check the running border status for US travelers before you book the Thailand leg, and read whether the Cambodia-Thailand land border is open for a quick current-status answer. The Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in and the Business eVisa is $90 USD, both approved in 3–5 days and delivered as a printable PDF by email.