README.md

---
pretty_name: "DMARC and SPF Adoption Among Large Organizations"
license: cc-by-4.0
tags:
  - cybersecurity
  - email-security
  - dmarc
  - spf
  - email-authentication
  - technographics
  - technology-adoption
  - company-data
  - phishing
  - business
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
language:
  - en
size_categories:
  - 10K<n<100K
dataset_info:
  features:
    - name: Popularity Rank
      dtype: int64
    - name: Domain
      dtype: string
    - name: Company Name
      dtype: string
    - name: Company Size
      dtype: string
    - name: Year Founded
      dtype: float64
    - name: Industry
      dtype: string
    - name: Locality
      dtype: string
    - name: Country
      dtype: string
    - name: TLD
      dtype: string
    - name: SPF
      dtype: string
    - name: DMARC
      dtype: string
    - name: BIMI
      dtype: string
    - name: MTA-STS
      dtype: string
    - name: Posture
      dtype: string
  splits:
    - name: train
      num_examples: 36120
---

# DMARC and SPF Adoption Among Large Organizations

## Overview

This dataset records which of 36,120 large organizations publish SPF and DMARC records on their primary domain, with firmographic context for each: industry, employee band, country, locality and founding year.

SPF lists the servers allowed to send mail for a domain. DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with mail that fails that check, and where to send reports. A domain with SPF but no DMARC has published the list without publishing an instruction, so receivers are left to decide for themselves.

Collected in August 2026. DNS records change, so treat the data as a snapshot of that month rather than a current state.

## SPF and DMARC Coverage

Of the 35,563 large organizations that publish SPF, **45.7% also publish DMARC**. The other 19,315 publish SPF alone.

| Posture | Organizations |
| ------- | ------------- |
| SPF only | 19,315 |
| SPF + DMARC | 16,248 |
| DMARC without SPF | 557 |

SPF is close to universal among organizations that send mail, so the SPF group serves as a denominator and the percentage above is a rate rather than a raw count.

## Adoption by Country and Industry

DMARC adoption among SPF publishers, by country. Groups with fewer than 150 organizations are omitted.

| Country | Organizations | DMARC |
| ------- | ------------- | ----- |
| Sweden | 305 | 59.7% |
| Argentina | 219 | 56.6% |
| Denmark | 188 | 56.4% |
| Belgium | 305 | 53.4% |
| United Kingdom | 1,733 | 51.9% |
| Australia | 596 | 51.8% |
| South Korea | 199 | 34.2% |
| Vietnam | 268 | 34.3% |
| China | 1,456 | 30.2% |

By industry, same threshold:

| Industry | Organizations | DMARC |
| -------- | ------------- | ----- |
| Defense & Space | 168 | 56.5% |
| Medical Devices | 197 | 55.8% |
| Banking | 650 | 55.5% |
| Airlines/Aviation | 252 | 54.0% |
| Insurance | 638 | 53.4% |
| Security and Investigations | 318 | 35.5% |
| Professional Training & Coaching | 150 | 28.7% |

Employee band makes little difference. Organizations with 5,001 to 10,000 employees reach 46.7%, and those with more than 10,000 reach 44.9%.

BIMI and MTA-STS are rare in this population. Across all 36,120 organizations, 17 publish BIMI and 5 publish MTA-STS.

## Dataset Fields

`Email-Authentication.csv`, 36,120 rows, 14 columns. Coverage is the share of rows where the field is populated.

| Column | Type | Coverage | Description |
| ------ | ---- | -------- | ----------- |
| `Popularity Rank` | int64 | 95.1% | Website popularity rank, lower being more popular. Rows are stored in ascending rank order |
| `Domain` | string | 100.0% | Primary website domain. Unique across the file |
| `Company Name` | string | 100.0% | Organization name, lowercased |
| `Company Size` | string | 100.0% | Employee band. Two values: `5001-10000` and `10001+` |
| `Year Founded` | float64 | 71.2% | Founding year |
| `Industry` | string | 99.1% | Industry label |
| `Locality` | string | 79.7% | City or region, where available |
| `Country` | string | 100.0% | Organization or website country |
| `TLD` | string | 100.0% | Top-level domain |
| `SPF` | string | 100.0% | `yes` or `no` |
| `DMARC` | string | 100.0% | `yes` or `no` |
| `BIMI` | string | 100.0% | `yes` or `no` |
| `MTA-STS` | string | 100.0% | `yes` or `no` |
| `Posture` | string | 100.0% | `SPF only`, `SPF + DMARC` or `DMARC without SPF` |

## Methodology

Domains were checked for published SPF, DMARC, BIMI and MTA-STS records in August 2026. An organization is included when at least one of SPF or DMARC was found on its primary domain.

The population is large organizations, meaning 5,001 or more employees, for which company information could be resolved.

## Important Notes

* `DMARC` means a DMARC record was found. It does not mean the policy is enforced. A policy of `p=none` requests monitoring only and is common, and the policy value is not recorded here, so `DMARC = yes` should not be read as protection.
* DKIM is not included. Detecting a DKIM record requires knowing the DNS selector in advance, so any count would understate adoption by orders of magnitude.
* The 557 organizations with DMARC but no SPF are unusual and often misconfigured. DMARC relies on SPF or DKIM alignment, so a DMARC record with neither does little.
* Records are read from the primary domain only. Large organizations send from many domains and subdomains, and those are not covered.
* Rates are calculated against organizations publishing SPF, not against all large organizations.
* Results represent observations made in August 2026.

## Use Cases

* Email security and anti-phishing research
* Benchmarking an organization or sector against its peers
* Public sector and regulatory policy analysis
* Journalism on email security preparedness
* Technographic and market research
* Data science and machine learning

## Citation

If you use this dataset, please credit StackScan and link to the source page.

Plain text:

StackScan. (2026). *DMARC and SPF Adoption Among Large Organizations* (data collected August 2026) [Data set]. StackScan. https://www.stackscan.com/technology/dmarc

BibTeX:

```bibtex
@misc{stackscan_email_authentication_2026,
  author       = {{StackScan}},
  title        = {DMARC and SPF Adoption Among Large Organizations},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {aug},
  publisher    = {StackScan},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.stackscan.com/technology/dmarc}},
  note         = {Data collected August 2026. Dataset: \url{https://huggingface.co/datasets/stackscan/email-authentication}}
}
```

## Related

[stackscan/lets-encrypt](https://huggingface.co/datasets/stackscan/lets-encrypt) uses the same population definition and collection period, so the two can be joined on `Domain`.

## Access to More Data

The files in this repository are CC BY 4.0 and free for anyone to use, including commercially. No request or permission is needed.

StackScan also provides free access to larger and custom datasets for data journalists, academic researchers, non-profits and other organizations working on non-commercial projects. Ask through [stackscan.com](https://www.stackscan.com).

## License

Released under [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You are free to share and adapt the data, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit.

Attribution must name StackScan and link to the source page:

> Data from [StackScan](https://www.stackscan.com/technology/dmarc), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

For academic or published work, use the citation above.