Field note · Cambodia · Banteay Meanchey

Poipet

The border is the destination here: the Aranyaprathet crossing has been shut since the July 2025 conflict, so every route through Poipet from Bangkok, Siem Reap, Battambang or Phnom Penh currently dead-ends at a closed gate, not a border town.

Researched: 29 September 2026
Reviewed: 29 September 2026
Ways of moving: 10, 12 sources
Not confirmed: 6
Fares seen: 2026

How transport works here

10 ways of moving, each with its rule

We confirmed seven ways of moving to, from or around Poipet: one by rail and cable, five by road and one hired or on demand, from 12 sources. Three entries are not a service at all but a rule that decides whether travel happens: a permit, a closure, a border, a season or an authority's say-so. One of them runs only on demand or when the seats are full, so there is no timetable to show; the rule is written where the timetable would be.

The fares were seen in 2026; a fare from an older year is a floor, not a price. Seven fares carry no year, because they could not be confirmed and the field says so. We rate 5 of the 10 high confidence, our own judgement of the sources. The entry was checked on 29 September 2026, and ends with six things we could not confirm.

3 ways

Rules, permits and closures

service status

Thai-Cambodian land border closure

All land crossings between Thailand and Cambodia, including Aranyaprathet-Poipet

Not applicable while closed; check Thai and Cambodian government statements before travelling

When: n/a - the crossing does not operate
Takes: n/a
Fare: n/a

SeasonClosed indefinitely since the border conflict of late June-July 2025; still closed as of the most recent sourced statement. Run byGovernments of Thailand and Cambodia.

border crossing

Aranyaprathet (TH) - Poipet (KH) crossing

Rongkleu Market immigration complex, Aranyaprathet, to Poipet town centre, about 6 km

The crossing is in central Poipet; the nearest Thai town, Aranyaprathet, is about 6 km from the gate

When: When open: daily
Takes: Walk across in a few minutes once through both immigration halls; queues add the real time
Fare: No fee to cross on foot; Cambodian visa on arrival is separate (undated figure, see gaps)

SeasonOrdinarily open 07:00-20:00 on the Cambodian side per Wikivoyage; currently suspended (see service_status option). Run byThai Immigration Bureau and Cambodian General Department of Immigration.

service status

Visa-on-arrival scam and fake consulate zone

Tuk-tuk touts on the Thai side route arrivals through a fake 'Cambodian Consulate' and a visa tout zone before the real immigration office

Refuse any tuk-tuk driver who offers to take you to a 'consulate' first; go straight to the marked Thai immigration building, then the official Cambodian visa counter across the bridge

When: Ongoing, reported for years
Takes: n/a
Fare: Fake consulate visas run 1,000-1,400 baht versus the official US$30 (undated, from Wikivoyage)

Seasonyear-round when the border is open. Run byIndependent touts and a private 'consulate' operation, not government.

One way

By rail and cable

train

Bangkok Hualamphong - Aranyaprathet train

Bangkok Hualamphong to Aranyaprathet, alight earlier at Ban Klong Luk for the border itself

Board at Hualamphong station; two departures a day

When: Two trains a day each direction
Takes: About 5.5 hours to Aranyaprathet (departs 05:55 or 13:05, arrives 11:20 or 18:05)
Fare: 48 baht 3rd class, plus an 80 baht surcharge for a bicycle (undated figure from Wikivoyage)

Seasonyear-round; no air-con, 3rd class only. BookingBuy at the station, no reservation used for 3rd class. Run byState Railway of Thailand.

5 ways

By road

songthaew

Aranyaprathet town to Rongkleu Market border

7-Eleven at Rongkleu Market to central Aranyaprathet, along the main road past the railway station

Flag down anywhere on the main road between the railway station and the border market

When: Frequent, no fixed timetable, runs through the day
Takes: About 15-20 minutes
Fare: 15 baht (undated figure from Wikivoyage)

Seasonyear-round when the border is open. Bookingnone, pay the driver. Run byIndependent pickup-truck drivers.

bus

Poipet - Siem Reap bus (Larryta Bus)

Poipet to Siem Reap, direct

Book at a Poipet bus company office on the main street, or on BookMeBus in advance

When: At least one daily direct departure at 08:00, per the booking site's schedule for early October 2026
Takes: 2h 30m direct
Fare 2026: USD 10.50 in a VIP 15-seat minivan, seen 2026

Seasonyear-round, road is fully paved. BookingReserve online or at the office; 15 seats were shown available for this run. Run byLarryta Bus.

bus

Poipet - Battambang bus

Poipet to Battambang, direct

Bus company offices on Poipet's main street away from the border roundabout, or book ahead online

When: At least four direct departures a day between two operators (07:00, 08:00, 09:00, 10:30), per the booking site's schedule for early October 2026
Takes: 2h 00m direct
Fare 2026: USD 9.00 in a standard van (Larryta Bus) up to USD 18.50 in an 11-seat luxury HiAce (Vireak Buntham Express), seen 2026

Seasonyear-round, road is fully paved. BookingReserve online or at the office. Run byLarryta Bus and Vireak Buntham Express.

bus

Poipet - Phnom Penh bus

Poipet to Phnom Penh, direct, via Sisophon and the Tonle Sap's south shore

Multiple operators' offices on Poipet's main street, or book ahead online

When: 14 distinct direct departures across five operators between 06:15 and 20:45, counted on the booking site's schedule for early October 2026; the page carries a 'see more trips' control, so the real total may be higher
Takes: 6h 30m to 8h 45m direct, depending on operator and stops
Fare 2026: USD 13.00 on a 45-seat bus up to USD 18.50 in a 12-seat luxury van; the one overnight sleeping bus, at 20:45, was USD 17.22 discounted from a listed USD 20.26; the dearest run is a daytime 08:00 'Air Bus First Class' at USD 30.00. Seen 2026

Seasonyear-round, fully paved National Highway 5. BookingReserve online or at the office. Run bySaly VIP, Capitol Tours and Transport, Larryta Bus, Vireak Buntham Express, VET Air Bus Express.

share taxi

Poipet taxi cartel to Siem Reap

Poipet border to Siem Reap

Taxis wait at the Poipet Tourist Passenger International Terminal (a compulsory transfer point most arrivals are steered to); walking further into town and away from the roundabout finds independent drivers outside the cartel

When: On demand, whenever a taxi has a full load or a solo hire
Takes: About 2.5 hours
Fare: The official taxi to Siem Reap is 2,400 baht for the car, of which the police-enforced cartel takes US$25 per trip; a taxi outside the cartel should cost about US$30, and a seat in a shared taxi 'Khmer-style' about US$8 (undated figures from Wikivoyage)

Seasonyear-round. Bookingnone, negotiate on the spot. Run byIndependent drivers, organised into a police-backed cartel at the official terminal.

One way

Hired, booked and on demand

tour package

Poipet casino zone between the checkpoints

Duty-free casino strip sitting in the buffer zone before Cambodian immigration

Casinos (Holiday Palace, Diamond, Tropicana, Grand) line the road on the approach to Cambodian immigration; day-tripping Thai gamblers cross to them without going further into Cambodia

When: Daily, casinos operate independently of bus and border hours within the zone
Takes: n/a - a destination in itself, not a transit route
Fare: No entry fee reported; buffet and gaming costs vary by casino and are unconfirmed here

Seasonyear-round. Run byVarious private casino operators; Wikivoyage notes organised-crime links are widely assumed locally.

Not confirmed

What we could not find out

6 things the researcher looked for and did not find, in their own words, with where to ask instead. None of this goes into the planner; it stays here until someone confirms it.

01
The brief's list of things to check (opening hours, the free shuttle between immigration posts, the current post-conflict status) assumes the crossing is operating. It is not: Wikivoyage's Cambodia article carries a standing cautionbox (last edited 2025-09-24) stating the Thai-Cambodia land border 'has been closed indefinitely following a border conflict in July 2025', and a separate warningbox (last edited 2026-04-20) repeats that the land border with Thailand 'remains closed indefinitely'. This correction is recorded here per the brief's own instruction to trust sources over the prompt.
02
Google News RSS turned up several relevant, dated headlines that could not be verified against publisher text in this session because news.google.com redirect links did not resolve to the underlying article (Bangkok Post and khmertimeskh.com both returned 403 or a paywall gate to automated fetches): 'Anutin says "no reopening" of border with Cambodia despite economic strain' (khmertimeskh.com, dated 26 May 2026); 'Govt dismisses Sa Kaeo checkpoint reopening claim' (Bangkok Post, dated 2 June 2026); 'Poipet City roars back to life as people, businesses return' (khmertimeskh.com, dated 8 January 2026), which implies economic activity resuming in Poipet town itself even while the formal crossing stays shut - this is plausible (trade zones and the casino strip are separate from the pedestrian/vehicle immigration gate) but is not confirmed here and should not be read as the border reopening. Anyone updating this file should try to reach these three articles directly rather than through the aggregator link.
03
The free shuttle bus between the two immigration posts that the brief asks about could not be confirmed from any source reached in this session. Wikivoyage describes a different free shuttle - from the Cambodian arrivals hall to the out-of-town Poipet Tourist Passenger International Terminal, which is a bus depot, not the Thai immigration post - and that is what is recorded in the taxi-cartel option above. Ask at Rongkleu Market when the border reopens.
04
BookMeBus paginates: each of the three search pages ends in a 'Click to See More Trips' control that a plain HTTP fetch does not follow, so the Siem Reap route shows one trip and Battambang four when both plainly have more (their own operator filters list three and two companies respectively). The departure counts in this file are floors read off the first page, not totals. BookMeBus fares and schedules above were read from the live search results page for a search date of 6 October 2026 (the site's default upcoming date at the time of research, 29 September 2026); they describe the routes' normal timetable, not a live guarantee for any specific date, and were fetched via BookMeBus's own server-rendered HTML rather than any published API.
05
No current source was found for the Cambodian visa-on-arrival fee at Poipet specifically; the US$30 figure that appears throughout Wikivoyage's Cambodia and Poipet articles carries no date in the current wikitext and is recorded here as undated. Given the border closure, e-visa acceptance at the Poi Pet crossing (listed by Cambodia's Wikivoyage article as one of the few land crossings that takes e-visas) cannot be confirmed as currently operative either.
06
The taxi mafia fare, casino buffet costs, and the exact current opening hours of the crossing (07:00-20:00 is Wikivoyage's figure, undated in the current text) could not be checked against a government or operator source in this session; treat them as a Wikivoyage-sourced starting point only.

In the planner

What the planner can route today

The options above live on the place page, not in the departure board: a boat that comes when you phone has no time to show. What the board can do for Poipet is this.

N: Scheduled flightsnearest airport SAI is 182 km away
N: Trains and coachesno timetable feed known for this country
N: Ferriesno crossing within 25 km
Y: Driving and taxiOpenStreetMap roads; cab fare from the country band
N: Bike and scooter shareno share feed known
N: Cruisesno open itinerary source anywhere

Y routable now · F found, not yet implemented · N no source known. Nearest place with more: Battambang, 92 km.