Why Cloudflare Says Your DMARC Record is Missing (When It Isn't)

The Warning That Sends You Spiraling

You did everything right. You added a DMARC record to your DNS. You verified it with an external tool. It’s working.

Then you log into Cloudflare’s Security Center and see this:

No DMARC record detected

We detect an incorrect or missing DMARC record.

Risk: Email Spoofing

Did you mess something up? Is your domain vulnerable?

Take a breath. Your record is probably fine. This appears to be an edge case in Cloudflare’s Security Insights scanner. Understanding why it happens will save you hours of unnecessary troubleshooting.

What’s Actually Happening

Cloudflare’s Security Center includes a scanner that checks your DNS for email security records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. In some cases, it doesn’t reliably detect records that were created manually rather than through Cloudflare’s Email Security Wizard.

If you added your DMARC record yourself by creating a TXT record at _dmarc.yourdomain.com, there’s a chance the Security Insights scanner won’t recognize it. The record exists and works perfectly. Receiving mail servers can read it just fine. The scanner’s detection logic just doesn’t catch every valid configuration.

Cloudflare’s team has acknowledged this in their community forums, noting they’re working on improving the DMARC and SPF detection logic. Given the complexity of DNS and the countless ways organizations configure their email infrastructure, it’s understandable that edge cases exist.

Why Detection Is Harder Than It Looks

It’s easy to assume DNS record detection should be straightforward: look up the record, check if it exists, done. In practice, it’s more nuanced.

DMARC records can include a wide range of optional tags, policy variations, and reporting configurations. SPF records can chain multiple includes, use macros, and reference other domains. Organizations configure these records in countless ways depending on their email providers, security requirements, and compliance needs.

Cloudflare’s Security Insights is designed to surface actionable security recommendations across millions of domains. Building detection logic that correctly handles every valid edge case while still catching actual misconfigurations is genuinely difficult. Sometimes valid records slip through.

The same complexity applies to their Email Routing SPF recommendation. When you set up Cloudflare Email Routing, they suggest:

v=spf1 include:_spf.mx.cloudflare.net ~all

This is correct and works perfectly. But depending on your overall DNS configuration, the scanner may not always recognize it as complete. It’s a known edge case the team is working to address.

How to Verify Your Record is Actually Fine

When you see this warning, the first step is independent verification. Use external DMARC validation tools:

• MXToolbox DMARC Lookup
• dmarcian DMARC Inspector
• EasyDMARC DMARC Checker

Enter your domain. If these tools show a valid DMARC record with the policy you expect, you’re good. The record exists, it’s syntactically correct, and receiving mail servers will honor it.

A valid DMARC record looks something like this:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]

The key elements:

• v=DMARC1 declares this is a DMARC record
• p=none, p=quarantine, or p=reject sets your policy
• rua=mailto:... tells reporters where to send aggregate reports

If your record has these components and external tools validate it, you can safely proceed.

When Should You Actually Worry?

The Security Insights warning is worth investigating further if:

1. External tools also can’t find your record. If MXToolbox and dmarcian both say no DMARC record exists, you have a real problem to solve.

2. Your record has syntax errors. Missing semicolons, typos in tag names, or malformed email addresses will break your DMARC.

3. You have multiple DMARC records. A domain should have exactly one DMARC record. Multiple records cause undefined behavior.

4. Your record is on the wrong subdomain. DMARC records go at _dmarc.yourdomain.com, not yourdomain.com or dmarc.yourdomain.com.

If none of these apply and external validators show a healthy record, you’re dealing with a detection edge case rather than an actual misconfiguration.

What You Can Do

If you’ve verified your record is correct externally:

1. Continue with confidence. Your DMARC is working. Mail servers are reading it correctly.

2. Dismiss the insight if possible. Some Cloudflare plans let you acknowledge specific Security Insights to clear them from your dashboard.

3. Check back periodically. Cloudflare actively improves their detection logic. The edge case affecting your configuration may be resolved in a future update.

4. Use dedicated DMARC monitoring. Purpose-built email authentication platforms validate records and provide ongoing visibility into your DMARC reports, giving you confidence beyond point-in-time checks.

The Bigger Picture

Cloudflare provides exceptional infrastructure for building and hosting web applications. Their DNS, CDN, Workers platform, and security tools are genuinely best-in-class. We built Verkh entirely on Cloudflare’s platform because of how reliable and performant it is.

That said, no system catches every edge case perfectly. Security Insights is one tool among many, and when it flags something that external validators confirm is fine, trust the validators. Your DMARC is working.

The journey from p=none to p=reject requires confidence in your configuration. Don’t let a scanner edge case shake that confidence when the evidence shows your setup is correct.

Next Steps

If you want ongoing visibility into your DMARC status rather than point-in-time checks, Verkh monitors your authentication continuously and shows you exactly what’s passing, what’s failing, and how to fix it. Start free.