Published:
18.06.2025

International Email Verification — How to Do It Properly

Learn how to verify international email addresses correctly in 2025. Understand how Unicode, Latin, and non-Latin characters affect validation, and discover tools and techniques to keep your global contact lists accurate and deliverable.
email campaign setup to reactivate old subscriber list

Many e-marketing up-and-comers daily renew their contact list with standard accounts with Latin characters and also with international ones. To ensure these addresses are valid before sending, use the Bulk Email Verification Service — it processes large international lists and prevents hard bounces. And they’re doing the right thing. Yet, there’s one little "but" in it. International email requires special attention, as well as special, careful, validation. Our guide is created for those entrepreneurs and marketers desiderating a customer base within the USA. It explains the specifics and complexity of international address verification. And also it recommends the best tool for this purpose.

International account features

Before 2009, the use of accounts inconsistent with ASCII was prohibited. This standard provides for the use of Latin letters only. And no one whether Russian, Asian, or Middle Eastern, could register their account in their native language. Transliteration was necessary. Luckily, now it is possible to create accounts using symbols different from the ASCII list, such as Arabic, Cyrillic, Hindi, and others, including diacritics. New IETF standards allow this. For example, Petr Ivanov before had to transliterate the name of his mailbox as follows: petr.ivanov@domain.com. Now his account could look like: петр.иванов@домен.ком. It will be legal, provided if its owner is indeed a real person and the account itself has not been created for fraudulent purposes. Verify the data by means of a special service to determine whether an international email is valid. We recommend that you opt for universal service to analyze both standard Latin and international accounts. Such an approach allows us to achieve good results and save costs for audit services.

What data validation tools to use?

You can verify international addresses with the following options:

  • Mass email verification is a tool that allows processing large volumes of information. So a quality validator can check about 500,000 - 800,000 in less than 45 minutes. This is the best solution for companies making mailings to a huge number of addresses or updating the client database with new, unverified data. Mass verification will also be useful to those who have an obsolete list of customer accounts. All you have to do is upload the contact file to the service and start the verification. Then, the software will define invalid and inactive emails of any format, including international, and will give the results.
  • The API e-mail Verification involves the integration of functionality into the client’s corporate system or website. The advantage of the method is the synchronization of all data available in the service base and on the user’s resource, as well as the optimization of operational processes. Verification can be made in your working console, obtaining reliable and up-to-date data in real-time.

If there are not a lot of international accounts on your list, you can use free international address verification. Many services offer their verification services for free for new users. With some restrictions, indeed. In this way, you can get rid of invalid international email addresses with a minimum budget, and test the service before making a decision to buy a fee package. For example, Proofy offers efficient mailing list verification tools and provides free credits immediately after registration. There are also helpful discounts, special prices for promotions, specials and other ”goodies” for saving money for customers.

Why is it so important to verify international e-mail addresses?

Advantages of the list of international (including non-international) address validating:

  • A high percentage of letters delivered (up to 99%);
  • Minimum values for soft and hard bounces;
  • The sender’s unchallenged reputation and clean base;
  • Greatest advertising campaigns efficiency;
  • More targeted and personalized mailings;
  • Good performance of Open Rates and CTR;
  • Increasing ROI and brand loyalty;
  • Customer relations are improving.


Why Global Email Validation Is More Than Just a Technical Step

When you start working with international subscribers, email validation stops being a routine task — it becomes part of your communication culture.
Behind every address is a real person who might read your message in another language, timezone, or even alphabet. Verifying their address isn’t just about avoiding bounces — it’s about respecting their inbox and ensuring your message actually reaches them.

In a world where brands compete for attention across borders, clean data equals trust.
It means fewer delivery errors, stronger engagement, and a better sender reputation no matter where your audience lives.

If you’re exploring how to make your campaigns more human-centered and relatable, check out our article How to Create Emotional Content in Email Marketing.

Emotional storytelling and personalization are two sides of the same coin — both depend on how well you know and respect your audience.
Once your data is clean and your messages are relevant, you can focus on building lasting trust. For that, we recommend reading Build Customer Loyalty in E-Marketing — it explains how consistent communication helps convert one-time readers into loyal subscribers.

Final Thoughts On International Address Verification

Certainly, it’s not all the advantages of regular hygiene. And online email verifier Proofy is ready to offer much more. Please contact our managers for more information.