MessageRejected AWS Origin: Platform & cloud Last updated 13 Oct 2026

SES MessageRejected: Email address is not verified. The following identities failed the check in region

SES refused to send because the From address/domain isn’t verified — or the account is still in the SES sandbox, where recipients must be verified too.

Exact message you may see Email address is not verifiedThe following identities failed the check in regionEmail address not verified
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Seen on: AWS

Meaning

SES requires verified identities per region. In sandbox mode you can only send to verified addresses, which surprises people the first time a real user signs up.

Common causes

  • From address/domain not verified in this region
  • Account in SES sandbox and recipient not verified
  • Using a different region than where the identity was verified

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Verify the domain (DKIM) in the sending region
  2. Request production access to leave the sandbox
  3. Configure the SDK with the SES region you verified in

Detailed fix by platform

AWS CLI

  1. bash
    aws sesv2 get-account --region eu-west-1 --query ProductionAccessEnabled
aws sesv2 create-email-identity --email-identity example.com --region eu-west-1

How to diagnose

  1. Identity — Verified in this region?
  2. Sandbox — ProductionAccessEnabled?
  3. Recipient — Verified (sandbox)?

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Platform & cloud. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

550 5.1.1 — 550 5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist (User unknown) (Email / SMTP)550 5.1.1550 5.7.1 — 550 5.7.1 Relaying denied / Message rejected as spam / Unauthenticated email not accepted (Email / SMTP)550 5.7.1550 5.7.26 — 550 5.7.26 This mail has been blocked because the sender is unauthenticated (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) (Email / SMTP)550 5.7.26Endpoint request timed out — API Gateway: {"message": "Endpoint request timed out"} (504 after 29 seconds) (AWS)Endpoint request time…Environment health has transitioned to Severe — Elastic Beanstalk: Environment health has transitioned from Ok to Severe (AWS)Environment health ha…IAM AccessDeniedException — AccessDeniedException: User: arn:aws:iam::... is not authorized to perform: service:Action on resource: ... (AWS)IAM AccessDeniedExcep…Malformed Lambda proxy response — API Gateway {"message": "Internal server error"} 502 — Malformed Lambda proxy response (AWS)Malformed Lambda prox…not authorized to access this resource — API Gateway 403: User is not authorized to access this resource with an explicit deny (AWS)not authorized to acc…MessageRe…

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