Can Foreigners Own Property in Cambodia? The Strata Title Rules in 2026

Can Foreigners Own Property in Cambodia? The Strata Title Rules in 2026

Foreigners cannot own land in Cambodia under any circumstances. They can own a condominium unit above the ground floor in a co-owned building constructed or registered after 2010, subject to a 70 percent project-wide foreign quota. That is the entire menu for direct foreign ownership. Everything else, including a villa in Sihanoukville or a beach plot in Kep, requires a Cambodian partner or a long lease.

The relevant statute is the Law on Providing Foreigners with Ownership Rights to Private Units of Co-Owned Buildings, promulgated in May 2010. It is the most foreigner-friendly real estate law in Cambodia's modern history, and it remains the only framework that gives a foreign individual a hard title in their own name.

The 2010 law and the ground floor rule

Under the 2010 Law, a foreign individual or foreign-controlled entity can hold a strata title to a private unit in a co-owned building, provided three conditions are met.

First, the unit must be on the first floor or above. The ground floor is reserved for Cambodian ownership. The reasoning in the law's drafting was straightforward: the ground floor is in direct contact with the soil, and the constitutional ban on foreign land ownership was preserved by carving out the elevated portions of the building.

Second, foreign ownership in any single co-owned building cannot exceed 70 percent of the total private unit area. The remaining 30 percent must be owned by Cambodian nationals. The cap is administered by the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (MLMUPC), which maintains the registration of strata titles and tracks foreign quota at each project.

Third, the building must be properly registered under the strata title system established by the 2007 Civil Code (effective December 2011) and the implementing regulations. Older buildings that pre-date the strata title framework cannot issue foreign-eligible titles, even if individual units are physically suitable.

A foreign buyer in a qualifying project receives a hard strata title document issued by the MLMUPC. This is the same instrument that Cambodian unit owners receive. It can be sold, leased, mortgaged, and inherited without any nationality restriction on the buyer or heir, subject to the building staying within the 70 percent foreign cap on resale.

What about land for a villa?

Land is the constitutional line. Article 44 of the 1993 Constitution restricts land ownership to Cambodian natural persons and legal entities, and the 2001 Land Law operationalizes that restriction. There is no investor visa workaround.

In practice, foreigners who want land use one of three structures:

Long-term lease. The Land Law permits leases of up to 50 years, renewable for another 50 years, registered with the cadastre. A registered long-term lease is a real property right enforceable against third parties and the lessor's successors. This is the cleanest and most defensible structure for a foreign buyer of villa land.

Cambodian limited company. A company with at least 51 percent Cambodian ownership can hold land. The Foreign Business Law and the Anti-Nominee provisions of the Land Law (Articles 17 to 23) prohibit using Cambodian nominees to circumvent the ownership cap. Enforcement has been uneven, but the MLMUPC has historically scrutinized companies registered for the purpose of holding a single residential parcel for a foreign principal.