A Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) is a digital certificate, issued by an approved Certification Authority, that proves an organisation owns the logo it wants to display beside its emails. It is the credential that mailbox providers such as Gmail and Apple Mail require before they will show a brand logo through BIMI.
VMCs matter because they raise the bar against impersonation: a logo cannot be shown unless its trademark ownership has been independently verified. To obtain one, the logo must usually be a registered trademark with a recognised intellectual-property office, supplied as an SVG Tiny PS file, and the issuing CA validates the applicant's identity.
The certificate is then published at the URL named in the BIMI record's a= tag. Crucially, a VMC only helps once your domain enforces DMARC at p=quarantine or p=reject with full alignment. If enforcement is not yet in place, the logo will not appear regardless of the certificate. DMARC Engine's done-for-you service can take a domain to enforcement so a VMC actually displays. To check whether a published certificate is valid, use the VMC checker before going live.
Check it on your domain
- BIMI & VMC Checker: end-to-end BIMI readiness, covering DMARC enforcement, record, logo and VMC.
- BIMI Checker: checks a domain's BIMI record, logo and VMC.
- DMARC Checker: looks up and validates a domain's DMARC record and policy.