Troubleshoot outbound SMTP connectivity problems in Azure

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Outbound email messages that are sent directly to external domains (such as outlook.com) from a virtual machine (VM) are made available only to certain subscription types in Azure.

Important

For the following examples, the process applies mainly to Virtual Machines & VM Scale Sets resources (Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines & Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachineScaleSets). It's possible to use port 25 for outbound communication on Azure App Service and Azure Functions through the virtual network integration feature or when using App Service Environment v3. It's also possible to send port 25 outbound communication through Azure Firewall. However, the following subscription limitations described still apply. Sending email on Port 25 is unsupported for all other Azure Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) resources.

We recommend you use authenticated SMTP relay services to send email from Azure VMs or from Azure App Service. (These relay services typically connect through TCP port 587, but they support other ports.) These services are used to maintain IP and domain reputation to minimize the possibility that external domains reject your messages or put them to the SPAM folder. SendGrid is one such SMTP relay service, but there are others. You might also have an authenticated SMTP relay service on your on-premises servers.

Using these email delivery services isn't restricted in Azure, regardless of the subscription type.

Enterprise and MCA-E

For VMs and Azure Firewall that are deployed in standard Enterprise Agreement or Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E) subscriptions, the outbound SMTP connections on TCP port 25 aren't blocked. However, there's no guarantee that external domains accept the incoming emails from the VMs and Azure Firewall. For emails rejected or filtered by the external domains, contact the email service providers of the external domains to resolve the problems. These problems aren't covered by Azure support.

For Enterprise Dev/Test subscriptions, port 25 is blocked by default.

It's possible to have this block removed. To request to have the block removed, go to the Cannot send email (SMTP-Port 25) section of the Diagnose and Solve section in the Azure Virtual Network resource in the Azure portal and run the diagnostic. This process exempts the qualified enterprise dev/test subscriptions automatically.

After the subscription is exempted from this block and the VMs are stopped and restarted, all VMs in that subscription are exempted going forward. The exemption applies only to the subscription requested and only to VM traffic that is routed directly to the internet.

All Other Subscription Types

The Azure platform blocks outbound SMTP connections on TCP port 25 for deployed VMs. This block is to ensure better security for Azure partners and customers, protect Azure platform, and conform to industry standards.

If you're using a subscription type that isn't an Enterprise Agreement or MCA-E, we encourage you to use an authenticated SMTP relay service, as outlined earlier in this article.

Changing subscription type

If you change your subscription type from Enterprise Agreement or MCA-E to another type of subscription, changes to your deployments might result in outbound SMTP being blocked.

Need help? Contact support

If you're using an Enterprise Agreement or MCA-E subscription and still need help, contact support to get your problem resolved quickly. Use this issue type: Technical > Virtual Network > Cannot send email (SMTP/Port 25).