diff --git a/mongoengine/fields.py b/mongoengine/fields.py
index 06c56f06c..b631fc48f 100644
--- a/mongoengine/fields.py
+++ b/mongoengine/fields.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 import decimal
 import itertools
 import re
+import socket
 import time
 import uuid
 import warnings
@@ -154,21 +155,105 @@ class EmailField(StringField):
 
     .. versionadded:: 0.4
     """
+    USER_REGEX = re.compile(
+        # `dot-atom` defined in RFC 5322 Section 3.2.3.
+        r"(^[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z]+(\.[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z]+)*\Z"
+        # `quoted-string` defined in RFC 5322 Section 3.2.4.
+        r'|^"([\001-\010\013\014\016-\037!#-\[\]-\177]|\\[\001-\011\013\014\016-\177])*"\Z)',
+        re.IGNORECASE
+    )
+
+    UTF8_USER_REGEX = re.compile(
+        six.u(
+            # RFC 6531 Section 3.3 extends `atext` (used by dot-atom) to
+            # include `UTF8-non-ascii`.
+            r"(^[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z\u0080-\U0010FFFF]+(\.[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z\u0080-\U0010FFFF]+)*\Z"
+            # `quoted-string`
+            r'|^"([\001-\010\013\014\016-\037!#-\[\]-\177]|\\[\001-\011\013\014\016-\177])*"\Z)'
+        ), re.IGNORECASE | re.UNICODE
+    )
 
-    EMAIL_REGEX = re.compile(
-        # dot-atom
-        r"(^[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z]+(\.[-!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{}|~0-9A-Z]+)*"
-        # quoted-string
-        r'|^"([\001-\010\013\014\016-\037!#-\[\]-\177]|\\[\001-011\013\014\016-\177])*"'
-        # domain (max length of an ICAAN TLD is 22 characters)
-        r')@(?:[A-Z0-9](?:[A-Z0-9-]{0,61}[A-Z0-9])?\.)+(?:[A-Z]{2,6}|[A-Z0-9-]{2,}(?<!-))$', re.IGNORECASE
+    DOMAIN_REGEX = re.compile(
+        r'((?:[A-Z0-9](?:[A-Z0-9-]{0,61}[A-Z0-9])?\.)+)(?:[A-Z0-9-]{2,63}(?<!-))\Z',
+        re.IGNORECASE
     )
 
+    error_msg = u'Invalid email address: %s'
+
+    def __init__(self, domain_whitelist=None, allow_utf8_user=False,
+                 allow_ip_domain=False, *args, **kwargs):
+        """Initialize the EmailField.
+
+        Args:
+            domain_whitelist (list) - list of otherwise invalid domain
+                                      names which you'd like to support.
+            allow_utf8_user (bool) - if True, the user part of the email
+                                     address can contain UTF8 characters.
+                                     False by default.
+            allow_ip_domain (bool) - if True, the domain part of the email
+                                     can be a valid IPv4 or IPv6 address.
+        """
+        self.domain_whitelist = domain_whitelist or []
+        self.allow_utf8_user = allow_utf8_user
+        self.allow_ip_domain = allow_ip_domain
+        super(EmailField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def validate_user_part(self, user_part):
+        """Validate the user part of the email address. Return True if
+        valid and False otherwise.
+        """
+        if self.allow_utf8_user:
+            return self.UTF8_USER_REGEX.match(user_part)
+        return self.USER_REGEX.match(user_part)
+
+    def validate_domain_part(self, domain_part):
+        """Validate the domain part of the email address. Return True if
+        valid and False otherwise.
+        """
+        # Skip domain validation if it's in the whitelist.
+        if domain_part in self.domain_whitelist:
+            return True
+
+        if self.DOMAIN_REGEX.match(domain_part):
+            return True
+
+        # Validate IPv4/IPv6, e.g. user@[192.168.0.1]
+        if (
+            self.allow_ip_domain and
+            domain_part[0] == '[' and
+            domain_part[-1] == ']'
+        ):
+            for addr_family in (socket.AF_INET, socket.AF_INET6):
+                try:
+                    socket.inet_pton(addr_family, domain_part[1:-1])
+                    return True
+                except (socket.error, UnicodeEncodeError):
+                    pass
+
+        return False
+
     def validate(self, value):
-        if not EmailField.EMAIL_REGEX.match(value):
-            self.error('Invalid email address: %s' % value)
         super(EmailField, self).validate(value)
 
+        if '@' not in value:
+            self.error(self.error_msg % value)
+
+        user_part, domain_part = value.rsplit('@', 1)
+
+        # Validate the user part.
+        if not self.validate_user_part(user_part):
+            self.error(self.error_msg % value)
+
+        # Validate the domain and, if invalid, see if it's IDN-encoded.
+        if not self.validate_domain_part(domain_part):
+            try:
+                domain_part = domain_part.encode('idna').decode('ascii')
+            except UnicodeError:
+                self.error(self.error_msg % value)
+            else:
+                if not self.validate_domain_part(domain_part):
+                    self.error(self.error_msg % value)
+
 
 class IntField(BaseField):
     """32-bit integer field."""
diff --git a/tests/document/instance.py b/tests/document/instance.py
index 78d326fc6..c59de96fe 100644
--- a/tests/document/instance.py
+++ b/tests/document/instance.py
@@ -844,7 +844,7 @@ def test_save(self):
         class Recipient(Document):
             email = EmailField(required=True)
 
-        recipient = Recipient(email='root@localhost')
+        recipient = Recipient(email='not-an-email')
         self.assertRaises(ValidationError, recipient.save)
         recipient.save(validate=False)
 
diff --git a/tests/fields/fields.py b/tests/fields/fields.py
index 4017377d1..806062561 100644
--- a/tests/fields/fields.py
+++ b/tests/fields/fields.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 import itertools
 import re
 import pymongo
+import sys
 
 from nose.plugins.skip import SkipTest
 from collections import OrderedDict
@@ -342,8 +343,6 @@ def test_url_validation(self):
         class Link(Document):
             url = URLField()
 
-        Link.drop_collection()
-
         link = Link()
         link.url = 'google'
         self.assertRaises(ValidationError, link.validate)
@@ -356,8 +355,6 @@ def test_unicode_url_validation(self):
         class Link(Document):
             url = URLField()
 
-        Link.drop_collection()
-
         link = Link()
         link.url = u'http://привет.com'
 
@@ -3456,23 +3453,99 @@ def test_email_field(self):
         class User(Document):
             email = EmailField()
 
-        user = User(email="ross@example.com")
-        self.assertTrue(user.validate() is None)
+        user = User(email='ross@example.com')
+        user.validate()
 
-        user = User(email="ross@example.co.uk")
-        self.assertTrue(user.validate() is None)
+        user = User(email='ross@example.co.uk')
+        user.validate()
 
-        user = User(email=("Kofq@rhom0e4klgauOhpbpNdogawnyIKvQS0wk2mjqrgGQ5S"
-                           "aJIazqqWkm7.net"))
-        self.assertTrue(user.validate() is None)
+        user = User(email=('Kofq@rhom0e4klgauOhpbpNdogawnyIKvQS0wk2mjqrgGQ5S'
+                           'aJIazqqWkm7.net'))
+        user.validate()
 
-        user = User(email="new-tld@example.technology")
-        self.assertTrue(user.validate() is None)
+        user = User(email='new-tld@example.technology')
+        user.validate()
+
+        user = User(email='ross@example.com.')
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        # unicode domain
+        user = User(email=u'user@пример.рф')
+        user.validate()
+
+        # invalid unicode domain
+        user = User(email=u'user@пример')
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        # invalid data type
+        user = User(email=123)
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+    def test_email_field_unicode_user(self):
+        # Don't run this test on pypy3, which doesn't support unicode regex:
+        # https://bitbucket.org/pypy/pypy/issues/1821/regular-expression-doesnt-find-unicode
+        if sys.version_info[:2] == (3, 2):
+            raise SkipTest('unicode email addresses are not supported on PyPy 3')
+
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField()
+
+        # unicode user shouldn't validate by default...
+        user = User(email=u'Dörte@Sörensen.example.com')
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        # ...but it should be fine with allow_utf8_user set to True
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField(allow_utf8_user=True)
 
+        user = User(email=u'Dörte@Sörensen.example.com')
+        user.validate()
+
+    def test_email_field_domain_whitelist(self):
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField()
+
+        # localhost domain shouldn't validate by default...
         user = User(email='me@localhost')
         self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
 
-        user = User(email="ross@example.com.")
+        # ...but it should be fine if it's whitelisted
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField(domain_whitelist=['localhost'])
+
+        user = User(email='me@localhost')
+        user.validate()
+
+    def test_email_field_ip_domain(self):
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField()
+
+        valid_ipv4 = 'email@[127.0.0.1]'
+        valid_ipv6 = 'email@[2001:dB8::1]'
+        invalid_ip = 'email@[324.0.0.1]'
+
+        # IP address as a domain shouldn't validate by default...
+        user = User(email=valid_ipv4)
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        user = User(email=valid_ipv6)
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        user = User(email=invalid_ip)
+        self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
+
+        # ...but it should be fine with allow_ip_domain set to True
+        class User(Document):
+            email = EmailField(allow_ip_domain=True)
+
+        user = User(email=valid_ipv4)
+        user.validate()
+
+        user = User(email=valid_ipv6)
+        user.validate()
+
+        # invalid IP should still fail validation
+        user = User(email=invalid_ip)
         self.assertRaises(ValidationError, user.validate)
 
     def test_email_field_honors_regex(self):