The honest headline: almost every price you will find for this journey online is wrong, and not by a little.
The old Siem Reap International Airport (REP) sat 6-8 km from town. It closed to commercial flights on 15 October 2023. Flights now use Siem Reap–Angkor International Airport (SAI), which opened the next day about 50 km east of the city — roughly a 45-60 minute drive on the Angkor Highway.
So the "$5 tuk-tuk into town", the "$10 taxi", the neat little price tables — those describe an airport that no longer takes commercial flights, and a journey one-sixth the length. They get copied forward anyway. This page used to carry them too; we have removed them.
Why we are not printing a price list
The airport does not publish its ground-transport fares on its website. The figures circulating on travel sites and aggregators disagree with each other — we found the same airport taxi quoted at very different prices on different pages, with no source behind any of them.
We could average those and print a confident-looking range. It would look freshly checked and it would be a guess. That is precisely the kind of number that gets travellers into arguments at a taxi desk, so it is not going on this page.
Where to get the real number
The transport counters in the arrivals area. The rates are posted there. You choose your vehicle, pay the posted price at the counter, and staff direct you to it. No meter, no negotiation at the kerb, and you see the figure before you commit. This is the authoritative answer for your journey.
In the app, if you use Grab or PassApp — the quote you are shown before confirming is your fare. Note that coverage at the new airport is patchier than at the old one; it is 50 km from where the drivers are.
At booking, if you pre-book a private transfer — the price is fixed then and there.
From your hotel, which is worth asking now in a way it was not before. At 50 km, a hotel pickup is a real cost question with a real answer.
What you can rely on
The order of cost, cheapest first: the airport shuttle bus, then a standard car, then a minivan or pre-booked private transfer. The airport's own website confirms the shuttle bus service operates, and it is the budget option.
Everything is dearer than it was. The journey is roughly six times longer than from the old airport. Any figure that looks like a pre-2023 bargain is a pre-2023 figure.
The distance and time: about 50 km, about 45-60 minutes. That is the thing that actually drives the price, and unlike the price, it does not change.
Money tips for the airport
ATMs dispense US dollars and Cambodian riel. Dollars are accepted for most tourist transactions with riel as small change, so you do not need to exchange currency before leaving the terminal. Keep small bills — drivers rarely have change for large notes.
Avoid the airport exchange counters where you can; you generally do not need riel for most tourist transactions anyway.
Our take
At the old airport, the difference between transport options was a few dollars and it genuinely did not matter much. That is no longer the case: a 50 km drive costs real money, and the gap between the shuttle bus and a private car is now meaningful.
If you are travelling light and flexible, the shuttle bus is the value option. For families, late arrivals, heavy luggage or anyone who wants the thing settled before they land, a pre-booked transfer removes a 50 km problem from the end of a long flight. Either way, get your number from the counter, the app or your booking — not from a travel article written before October 2023.