The email domain must resolve

The requirementstatement

The brand contact email domain must resolve with an MX or A record.

Severityseverity: BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
When it bitesphase: Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
What is checkedobject: brand.email domain
Where it liveslayer: BrandBRAND
How Ekas settles itdetectability: External recordEXTERNAL_DATA; The fact that settles it lives in a register we cannot query, such as the IRS file, a postal database, or another provider’s tenant. Reported as a warning with the evidence to check, not as a pass.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Wait on someone elseTERMINAL_EXTERNAL; Needs an external system or a waiting period, such as IRS propagation, a vetting result, or a carrier queue.
Who requires itauthorities: TwilioTCR
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

A domain with no mail records cannot receive the verification message, so the registration stalls waiting for a reply that could never arrive. It happens to businesses that registered a domain for the website and never configured mail on it, and to anyone who mistypes a domain into an address that otherwise looks perfect.

How to fix itremediation

Send a test message to the address from an outside account and confirm it arrives. If it bounces, the domain has no mail service — use a domain that does, or configure mail on this one before registering.

Provider rejection codescodes

The code you get back when this rule is what failed, and whether that provider lets you resubmit.

Provider	Code	Resubmit
Twilio	30701	Yes

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

Did a test message sent from an outside account actually land in this mailbox?

1Send one message from a personal account and confirm it arrives. That settles the MX record and the mailbox in a single step.
2If it bounces, the domain has no mail service — use a domain that does, or configure mail on this one before registering.

What wrong looks like: A domain registered for the website with mail never configured. The registration stalls waiting for a reply to a message that could never have arrived.

Notesnotes

A DNS lookup we do not perform. The user's equivalent is the test message: sending one from a personal account settles both the MX record and the mailbox in a single step, which is worth doing before the registration rather than after it stalls.

Rules you will hit next

Other brand rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.

BRD-001A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietorBlockingBLOCKING BRD-002Legal name must match the IRS record for the EINBlockingBLOCKING BRD-003Legal name must carry its exact entity suffix as filedBlockingBLOCKING BRD-008Legal name must not carry an appended personal name or roleBlockingBLOCKING BRD-009The legal name field takes the legal name, not the trading nameBlockingBLOCKING BRD-011A legal business name may back only one brand across the whole registryBlockingBLOCKING

All brand rules

BRD-115 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.