Datasets:
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
DMARCmeans a DMARC record was found. It does not mean the policy is enforced. A policy ofp=nonerequests monitoring only and is common, and the policy value is not recorded here, soDMARC = yesshould 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:
@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 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.
License
Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC 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, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
For academic or published work, use the citation above.