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SPF 10-lookup limit

The RFC 7208 rule that evaluating an SPF record may trigger at most 10 DNS-querying mechanisms and modifiers (include, a, mx, ptr, exists, redirect), beyond which the result is permerror.
Also written asSPF lookup limittoo many DNS lookupsSPF permerrorvoid lookup limit

Only terms that cause DNS queries count; ip4, ip6 and all do not. Nested include records count toward the same total, each mx mechanism may resolve at most 10 MX names, and receivers should allow at most two void lookups (names that return no records) (RFC 7208 §4.6.4). Since each SaaS sender's include often contains several lookups, domains using many services hit the limit quickly.

A permerror makes SPF unusable for that message, so DMARC then depends entirely on DKIM. Remedies: remove unused includes, send from subdomains with their own SPF records, use ip4 and ip6 ranges where providers publish stable ones, or flatten includes into addresses with an automated tool that tracks provider changes.

Standards and references

All terms