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Deliverability4 min readUpdated

No DMARC Record Found: What It Means and the Exact Record to Add

A checker says "No DMARC record found"? What that means for your mail, the exact TXT record to add, and why a record you just added might still not be found.

"No DMARC record found" means that when a receiver looked up the TXT records (short text lines in DNS used for email security) at _dmarc.yourdomain.com, nothing was there. Your mail can still be delivered, but nobody is told what to do when someone forges your domain, and you get no reports showing who is sending as you. Adding one takes a single TXT record and a few minutes. Here is the record, and the mistakes that make a freshly added one still come up as missing.

Quick answer

Add a TXT records (short text lines in DNS used for email security) with the host _dmarc and the value v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com, replacing yourdomain.com with your domain. Make sure dmarc@ is a real mailbox you can read. Check that SPF and DKIM already pass, then wait a few minutes and run the checker again.

What a missing record actually costs you

  • Anyone can send mail that claims to be from your domain, and receivers have no policy from you telling them to reject it. Invoice fraud "from" a real supplier's domain relies on exactly this.
  • You get no reports. DMARC aggregate reports are how you find out which servers are sending as your domain.
  • Gmail and Yahoo have required a DMARC record from bulk senders (around 5,000 or more messages a day to their users) since February 2024, and Microsoft applied the same rule to Outlook.com in 2025. A small business is below that line, but many checkers and filters still flag a missing record as a warning sign.

The record to add

This is the same record OquMail shows you during domain setup:

Type: TXT
Host: _dmarc
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com
  • v=DMARC1 identifies the record and must come first.
  • p=none means monitor only: receivers report what they see but do not change how they treat your mail. It is the safe starting point.
  • rua= is where aggregate reports are sent. On the OquMail free plan, DMARC (a policy that tells providers what to do if someone fakes your domain)@yourdomain.com can be one of your 15 mailboxes.

Before you publish it

DMARC passes when SPF or DKIM passes and matches the domain in your From address. For mail sent through OquMail both do, once the SPF and DKIM records from your dashboard are in place: SPF is v=spf1 MX (Mail Exchanger — where incoming email is delivered) a:mail.oqumail.com ~all, and DKIM is signed with your domain's own key under the oqumail._domainkey host. Click Verify DNS in the dashboard and confirm both show as verified. If you also send from other tools (a newsletter service, an invoicing app), turn on DKIM signing with your own domain in each of them.

Free business email on your own domain

OquMail gives you up to 15 mailboxes on your domain — free — with guided SPF/DKIM/DMARC, webmail, IMAP/SMTP for any mail app, and a send API. Setup is a few DNS records; changes usually take effect within minutes, occasionally up to 48 hours. Start at oqumail.com.

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Added it, but the checker still says not found

  1. The host is wrong. It must be _dmarc, not @ and not the root. A DMARC record placed at the root is ignored.
  2. The domain is doubled. Most DNS panels append your domain to the host, so typing _dmarc.yourdomain.com produces _dmarc.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com. Enter just _dmarc.
  3. There are now two DMARC records. When a receiver finds more than one, it ignores DMARC for the domain entirely. Merge them into one.
  4. The value is malformed. It must start exactly with v=DMARC1; followed by p=. Extra quotation marks typed inside the value, or a missing semicolon between tags, break it.
  5. The old "not found" answer is still cached. Resolvers cache a negative answer for a while, typically up to an hour. See how long DNS propagation takes.

Reports sent to another domain

If rua points to an address on a different domain, for example a reporting service, that domain must publish a record authorising it to receive your reports, at yourdomain.com._report._dmarc.theirdomain.com. Reporting services set this up for you. If you point rua at another domain you own, add it yourself or the reports will not arrive. This does not cause "not found"; the record is valid, the reports just never come.

What to do next

Leave p=none in place for a couple of weeks and read the reports as they arrive. How to read DMARC aggregate reports shows what to look for. Once every legitimate sender passes, tighten the policy step by step with the 30-day plan from p=none to reject. p=none stops nothing on its own; the protection starts at quarantine and reject.

Common questions

Do I need a separate record for each subdomain?

No. If a receiver finds no DMARC record on a subdomain, it falls back to the record on your main domain. Add sp= to that record if you want subdomains to have a different policy.

Will adding DMARC stop my mail going to spam?

Not by itself. DMARC proves your mail is really from you and stops forgeries; inbox placement also depends on your sending reputation and your content. A correct DMARC record removes one reason to distrust you, which helps.

Can p=none hurt my deliverability?

No. p=none asks receivers not to act on failures, so legitimate mail is treated exactly as before. It is the right first step even if you plan to move to reject quickly.

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