Since November 2025 your mail to @gmail.com addresses bounces with temporary (4xx) or permanent (5xx) errors referencing authentication or sender guidelines — messages that used to land in spam now don't arrive at all.
In November 2025 Google ended the “soft enforcement” period that started in February 2024 and began rejecting non-compliant bulk senders outright, with both temporary and permanent SMTP errors. The requirements themselves are unchanged: SPF and DKIM passing, a DMARC record aligned with your From domain, one-click unsubscribe for bulk mail, and a spam-complaint rate under 0.3%. Google's Postmaster Tools now shows a simple pass/fail compliance status for your domain.
p=none and a rua address so you can see exactly what Google sees.DNS changes propagate within minutes to 48 hours. Mailbox providers pick up the new records on their next check — most senders see bounces stop within a day of correct configuration.
Formal enforcement targets bulk senders, but partial authentication already costs you inbox placement at every volume — and spoofing protection matters regardless of how much you send.
Hosting support can add DNS records for you, but they don't know which services send as your domain. You (or a monitoring tool reading your DMARC reports) have to provide that list — that's the actual hard part.