5.7.129: no permission to send to the recipient
You were refused permission to send to the recipient; Microsoft documents this for mailboxes whose on-premises account was disabled.
- Microsoft
- Provider
- Permanent (5xx)
- Class
- Sources checked
- Author
At a glance
- Code
- 5.7.129
- Temporary or permanent
- PermanentRefused for good: the message comes back to the sender, and resending it gets the same answer.
- Who has to act
- The recipient's side. Their mail admin has to change something; you can tell them.
- What the server says
5.7.129 Your message couldn't be delivered to the recipient because you don't have permission…
What it means
Microsoft refers to 5.7.129 in its 5.7.1 guidance for one specific case: in a hybrid setup, an admin disables a user's on-premises Active Directory account while the mailbox lives in Exchange Online. Senders then get a report saying they lack permission to send to the recipient and should ask its admin to add them to the accept list. To stop all mail to such a mailbox, Microsoft advises deleting the on-premises account rather than disabling it, or removing the license together with a mail flow rule, since mail otherwise keeps arriving for about 30 days.
Common causes
- The recipient's on-premises Active Directory account was disabled while the mailbox is in Exchange Online.
- The recipient accepts mail only from an accept list that does not include you.
How to fix it
- 01Check with the recipient by another channel whether the address is still in use.
- 02If you need to keep writing to it, ask the recipient's admin to add you to its accept list.
- 03Admins offboarding a hybrid user: to stop mail cleanly, delete the on-premises account, or remove the license and add a mail flow rule that blocks delivery.
Sources
What this page rests on, checked on 20 Oct 2026. The explanation is ours; the reply text is the server's.
- Fix NDR error "550 5.7.1" in Exchange Onlinelearn.microsoft.com
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