Adding a CAA record in Cloudflare

Adding the record

Repeat for each CA you use. Once saved, the records show up in the list in the usual 0 issue "letsencrypt.org" form.

CAA records can't be proxied, so there's no orange cloud to worry about.

Records Cloudflare adds for you

If Universal SSL is on (it is by default), Cloudflare adds extra CAA records for the CAs it uses as soon as you create any CAA record yourself. That way your own records don't stop Cloudflare renewing its edge certificates.

You won't see these in the dashboard, but they're there in DNS and this tester will show them. At the time of writing they include:

0 issue "letsencrypt.org"
0 issue "pki.goog"
0 issue "sectigo.com"
0 issue "ssl.com"

Cloudflare changes this list from time to time. Two things follow from it:

Advanced certificates bought through Cloudflare don't get these automatic records, so add the CA for those yourself.

Subdomains and CNAMEs

A subdomain with no CAA records of its own uses the parent's. If you add records to the root of the domain, every subdomain on Cloudflare is now limited to those CAs, plus the ones Cloudflare adds.

If a subdomain is a CNAME to another service, the lookup follows it, and CAA records on the target apply instead. Test the exact name to see which records are being used.

Checking it worked

Changes on Cloudflare usually show up within a minute or two. Test the domain below, or run:

dig CAA example.com +short

Expect to see Cloudflare's records listed alongside your own.

Test your domain:

↳

CAA guides