Sanctions Screening – OFAC, EU, UK, UN Lists

What it does

Sanctions Screening – OFAC, EU, UK, UN Lists checks names of people, companies, vessels and aircraft against the official sanctions lists (OFAC SDN, OFAC Consolidated non-SDN, UN Security Council Consolidated List, EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List and UK Sanctions List) and returns one record per name: potential_match or no_match, the best score and the matching list entries with their programs, aliases, dates of birth and nationalities. Built for onboarding, payment and vendor checks, compliance tools and AI agents. $0.003 per screened name; lists are downloaded straight from the publishers and every record carries the list versions it was screened against.

Price per delivered record

Apify free plan: up to 10 items per run. Paid plans have no per-run cap; set maxTotalChargeUsd to cap spend.

Call it from code, an agent or the Console

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/sfoln~sanctions-screening/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"names":["AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES","Acme Bakery Ltd"]}'

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=sfoln/sanctions-screening"
    }
  }
}

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/sfoln~sanctions-screening/runs?maxTotalChargeUsd=1
GET  https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/{runId}            # until status is SUCCEEDED
GET  https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/{defaultDatasetId}/items?format=json

Authenticate with an Apify API token. MCP clients can instead sign in with OAuth when prompted. Example prompt for an agent: Screen "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES" and "Acme Bakery Ltd" against the OFAC, UN, EU and UK sanctions lists and tell me which ones are potential matches.

Input fields

Names of people, companies, vessels or aircraft to screen against the official OFAC, UN, EU and UK sanctions lists. Each name produces one dataset record with matchStatus potential_match or no_match.

{
  "names": [
    "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
    "Acme Bakery Ltd"
  ]
}

One record per input item

Records land in the run's dataset; a synchronous call returns them directly. Each has a status (ok is charged; everything else is free) and a charged flag. The run's OUTPUT record totals items and charges.

{
  "input": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
  "status": "ok",
  "charged": true,
  "chargedEvent": "name-screened",
  "source": "sanctions-lists",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T22:40:00.000Z",
  "name": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
  "entityType": "any",
  "dateOfBirth": null,
  "country": null,
  "normalizedName": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
  "matchStatus": "potential_match",
  "bestScore": 1,
  "threshold": 0.85,
  "matchCount": 1,
  "totalMatches": 1,
  "topMatchName": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
  "topMatchList": "ofac-sdn",
  "topMatchScore": 1,
  "matches": [
    {
      "list": "ofac-sdn",
      "listName": "OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List",
      "entryId": "36",
      "name": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
      "matchedName": "AEROCARIBBEAN AIRLINES",
      "matchedNameType": "primary",
      "aliases": [
        "AERO-CARIBBEAN"
      ],
      "type": "entity",
      "programs": [
        "CUBA"
      ],
      "dateOfBirth": [],
      "nationalities": [],
      "countries": [
        "CU"
      ],
      "listedOn": null,
      "ids": [],
      "remarks": null,
      "score": 1,
      "nameScore": 1,
      "reasons": [
        "name_exact"
      ],
      "sourceUrl": "https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/"
    }
  ],
  "listsComplete": true,
  "listsStale": false,
  "listsScreened": [
    "ofac-sdn",
    "ofac-cons",
    "un",
    "eu",
    "uk"
  ],
  "listsVersion": {
    "ofac-sdn": {
      "list": "ofac-sdn",
      "name": "OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List",
      "status": "ok",
      "sourceUrls": [
        "https://sanctionslistservice.ofac.treas.gov/api/PublicationPreview/exports/SDN.CSV"
      ],
      "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T22:39:12.000Z",
      "publishedAt": "2026-10-14T14:02:30.000Z",
      "recordCount": 19430,
      "fromCache": false
    }
  },
  "screenedAt": "2026-10-14T22:40:00.000Z"
}

Questions

Which sanctions lists are included?

OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), the OFAC Consolidated (non-SDN) lists, the UN Security Council Consolidated List, the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List and the UK Sanctions List, downloaded from the official publishers. Every record shows each list's source URL, download time, publication date and record count (listsVersion).

How does the matching work?

Names are transliterated to ASCII (Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek and other scripts), normalised (case, punctuation, legal forms such as LLC or OOO) and compared with every primary name and alias using a weighted token-set and Jaro-Winkler score that tolerates word order, missing middle names and spelling variants. A date of birth or country raises the score when the list entry agrees; a distant date of birth lowers it.

Is a potential match a confirmed sanctions hit?

No. A potential match means a list entry's name is similar enough to need a review; compare the date of birth, nationality, programs and remarks in the match before deciding.

How fresh are the lists?

Lists are downloaded at most once every 24 hours per Apify account (set List cache age to 0 to always download). OFAC and the UN publish daily; the EU and UK update on each new designation.

Related APIs

• kyb-company-check KYB Company Check – Registry, LEI, VAT$0.012 each
• lei-lookup LEI Lookup – GLEIF Legal Entity Search$2 / 1,000
• vat-number-validator EU VAT Number Validator (VIES)$2 / 1,000
• domain-intelligence Domain WHOIS & DNS Lookup$3 / 1,000
• company-contacts-finder Website Contact Details Scraper$6 / 1,000

This page for agents

• /actors/sanctions-screening.json — this API as JSON
• /actors/sanctions-screening.md — this API as Markdown
• apify.com/sfoln/sanctions-screening.md — the Store listing as Markdown
• /catalog.json — the whole catalogue