“554 5.7.5 Permanent error evaluating DMARC policy” — the record is broken

The distinction that matters

On a normal DMARC rejection the message says the mail failed the policy. Here it says permanent error evaluating — the receiver never got as far as a verdict. The fault is in the record, not in the message.

The typical formatting mistakes

1. v=DMARC1 is not first. RFC 7489 §6.3 requires the version tag to be the very first tag. A record starting p=reject; v=DMARC1 is invalid even though every part is present.
2. No p= tag. The policy is mandatory. A record of only v=DMARC1; rua=… is incomplete.
3. Multiple DMARC records at the same name. If _dmarc.yourdomain.com returns two TXT entries with v=DMARC1, the result is undefined under the RFC and treated as an error. Classic after a provider change.
4. An invalid pct value or a duplicated tag.
5. The record sits at the wrong name. It belongs at _dmarc.yourdomain.com, not on the domain itself. Many DNS panels append the domain name automatically.
6. Smart quotes. Typographic quotation marks pasted from a text document look right in a DNS panel and are not.

Checking it yourself

If two lines come back, you have found the cause. If one line comes back that does not start with v=DMARC1, likewise.