554: rejected as spam
The recipient’s Barracuda gateway scanned your message, judged its content to be spam and refused it.
- Barracuda
- Provider
- Permanent (5xx)
- Class
- Sources checked
- Author
At a glance
- Code
- 554
- Temporary or permanent
- PermanentRefused for good: the message comes back to the sender, and resending it gets the same answer.
- Who has to act
- Either side, depending on the cause. Start with the checks below that are yours.
- What the server says
554 Rejected due to spam content.
What it means
This is the Barracuda gateway’s permanent rejection after its spam scan of the message. Unlike a reputation block, it is about the message itself: wording, links, formatting and other signals added up to a spam verdict under the scoring the recipient’s administrators have set. Different companies tune these scores differently, so the same message can pass at one Barracuda customer and fail at another. A plainer message often gets through, and the recipient’s IT team can allow your address or domain if the mail is wanted.
Common causes
- Content that reads like bulk promotion, with many links, images or tracking elements.
- Links to domains with a poor reputation, or link shorteners.
- A strict spam threshold set by the recipient company.
How to fix it
- 01Rewrite the message plainly with few links and no shorteners.
- 02Check the domains you link to on blocklists.
- 03Make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass, since authentication failures add to spam scores.
- 04If the mail is wanted, ask the recipient’s IT team to allow your address on their Barracuda gateway.
Sources
What this page rests on, checked on 20 Oct 2026. The explanation is ours; the reply text is the server's.
- SMTP Error Codes, Barracuda Email Security Gateway documentationdocumentation.campus.barracuda.com
Related codes
554 at other providers
- 554Permanent rejection (554).Yahoo or AOL rejected the message for good with a 554. Yahoo uses this code for several problems, from failed authentication to unacceptable content, so the wording of the reply tells you which.
- 554Failed authentication.Yahoo or AOL refused the message because it failed the checks that confirm the sending domain, such as DKIM against the domain's policy. Yahoo lists this among its permanent 553 and 554 errors.
- 554Recipient does not exist.The Yahoo or AOL account you wrote to does not exist. The failure is permanent: check the address with the recipient, and remove it from any list.
- 554No reverse DNS (PTR) record.Xfinity refused the connection because your sending IP has no PTR record. Every server sending to Xfinity needs valid reverse DNS, so the owner of the IP must add one.
- 554Rejected for breaking GMX guidelines.GMX refused the message permanently because the connection broke its guidelines. GMX points to its requirements page and asks for the full error message if the problem continues.
- 554IP address on the GMX blocklist.Your sending IP is on a blocklist that GMX manages itself, so its servers refuse the connection. GMX keeps a strict no tolerance policy toward spam.
Further reading
All 11 Barracuda codesEvery code in the wikiPaste your own bounce