The DMARC protocol (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), first published in 2015 as RFC 7489, was updated in May 2026, after many years of work by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

The updated specification, which was known as “DMARCbis” while it was a draft, is now published as three documents: RFC 9989, RFC 9990, and RFC 9991.

Learn more about the new DMARC specification in our dedicated article:

DMARCwise fully supports the new DMARC specification. When you see a “New in RFC 9989” or “New in RFC 9990” badge in the user interface, it means that that particular attribute or concept was introduced or changed by the new DMARC specification.

Support for RFC 9989–9991 in DMARCwise includes:

  • ✅ DMARC reports that follow RFC 9990 are correctly processed and the new fields are shown in the dashboard for reports received on or after 28 November 2025.
  • ✅ DMARC records that follow RFC 9989 are recognized, with the new tags extracted, validated and shown in the dashboard as of 29 November 2025, even for previously discovered records.
  • ✅ Hosted DMARC allows configuring the new tags introduced in RFC 9989 (np, t, psd) as of 8 June 2026.
  • ✅ DMARC diagnostics follow RFC 9989 for policy discovery and alignment, with the option to compare the results with the legacy RFC 7489 evaluation, as of 12 June 2026.

Comparing diagnostics results

DMARC evaluation can produce different results depending on the specification used. Diagnosis results let you switch between the RFC 9989 and RFC 7489 tabs to evaluate the same email using each specification.

RFC 9989 uses DNS Tree Walk and the psd tag to determine the Organizational Domain. The legacy RFC 7489, now obsoleted by RFC 9989, uses the Public Suffix List instead.

The Organizational Domain is used both to discover the applicable DMARC policy and to evaluate relaxed SPF and DKIM alignment. As a result, switching between the tabs may show a different policy, alignment result, or overall DMARC result.

Although RFC 7489 is obsolete, comparing its result remains useful while mail receivers gradually adopt RFC 9989.