554: blocked by country of origin
The recipient company blocks mail from the country your sending IP is located in, using a Mimecast Geographical Restrictions policy.
- Mimecast
- Provider
- Permanent (5xx)
- Class
- Sources checked
- Author
At a glance
- Code
- 554
- Provider
- Mimecast
- 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 Host network, not allowed.
What it means
Mimecast lets customers permit, hold or block inbound connections based on which country an IP address belongs to, using Mimecast’s country IP database. A block rejects the message during the SMTP conversation, which is what this reply reports. Mimecast says these checks run before Auto Allow and Managed Sender policies, so being a known sender does not help. What counts is the location of the server that delivered the message, not where you are, so a provider whose servers sit in a blocked country can trigger it for mail you send from anywhere.
Common causes
- Your mail server or sending provider uses IPs registered in a country the company blocks.
- Your provider moved your mail to infrastructure in another region.
- An IP is mapped to the wrong country in the location data.
How to fix it
- 01Find the IP that delivered the message and check which country it is registered to.
- 02Send through a server or provider located in a country the company accepts.
- 03If you must use that route, ask the recipient’s IT team to permit your IP in their Geographical Restrictions policy.
Sources
What this page rests on, checked on 20 Oct 2026. The explanation is ours; the reply text is the server's.
- Policies - Mimecast SMTP Error Codes (Mimecast support)mimecastsupport.zendesk.com
- Policies - Configuring Geographical Restrictions (Mimecast support)mimecastsupport.zendesk.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.
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