Sanctions Screening Check: OFAC, UN, UK and EU Lists in One Run

Screen your customers, suppliers and counterparties against the US OFAC SDN list, OFAC's non-SDN lists, the UN Security Council list, the UK Sanctions List and the EU financial sanctions list, all in one run. Fuzzy matching catches spelling variants, transliterations and aliases. Every hit comes back with the list, the programme, a match score and a link to the official record.

Built for small compliance teams, fintechs, exporters and marketplaces that need to screen names properly but can't justify an enterprise screening contract.

How it works

flowchart LR
    A["Your names"] --> F["Fuzzy match on<br/>every name and alias"]
    B["OFAC SDN + non-SDN"] --> F
    C["UN Security Council"] --> F
    D["UK Sanctions List"] --> F
    E["EU Financial Sanctions"] --> F
    F --> G{"Result"}
    G --> H["potential-match<br/>with score and source"]
    G --> I["clear"]
    G --> J["incomplete<br/>(a list failed to load)"]

Every list is downloaded fresh from the sanctioning authority on every run, so there's no stale copy and no API key. In testing, all five lists (about 33,000 listed parties and 82,000 names and aliases) loaded in under 30 seconds.

Built for

• Fintechs and payment companies onboarding customers
• Exporters and freight forwarders checking buyers, consignees and vessels
• Marketplaces screening sellers before payouts
• Law firms and accountants checking new clients
• Procurement teams checking suppliers before signing

Input

{
  "names": ["Rosneft", "Acme Widgets Ltd", "Mohammed Hassan Akhund"],
  "entityType": "any",
  "minScore": 85,
  "onlyMatches": false
}

Setting	What it does
names	People, companies or vessels, one per line
lists	Any of ofac_sdn, ofac_consolidated, un, uk, eu. All five by default
entityType	individual, entity, vessel, aircraft or any
minScore	How close a name must be to count, 50 to 100. Default 85
maxMatchesPerName	Most listed parties returned per name
onlyMatches	Leave out names that screened clear
onlyChanged	For a scheduled re-screen: only new or removed matches

Output

{
  "name": "Rosneft",
  "status": "potential-match",
  "matchCount": 5,
  "topScore": 100,
  "topMatchName": "OPEN JOINT-STOCK COMPANY ROSNEFT OIL COMPANY",
  "topMatchList": "OFAC SDN (US)",
  "matches": [
    {
      "list": "OFAC SDN (US)",
      "listId": "17022",
      "name": "OPEN JOINT-STOCK COMPANY ROSNEFT OIL COMPANY",
      "matchedName": "ROSNEFT",
      "matchedOn": "alias",
      "score": 100,
      "type": "entity",
      "programs": ["UKRAINE-EO13662", "RUSSIA-EO14024"],
      "countries": ["Russia"],
      "sourceUrl": "https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/Details.aspx?id=17022"
    }
  ],
  "listsChecked": ["OFAC SDN (US)", "OFAC Consolidated non-SDN (US)", "UN Security Council", "UK Sanctions List", "EU Financial Sanctions"],
  "listsUnavailable": [],
  "changeType": "first-run",
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-23T18:40:12.000Z"
}

Names with a potential match come first, strongest score first.

How the matching works

Names are compared word by word, never as substrings. A substring search finds "PUTIN" inside "COMPUTING"; this one doesn't.

• Word order and punctuation don't matter. "Vladimir Putin" matches "PUTIN, Vladimir Vladimirovich".
• Legal forms are ignored. LLC, JSC, PJSC, GmbH and similar words don't create or block matches.
• Transliterations match. Hussein and Husayn, Mohammed and Muhammad, Osama and Usama, al-Duri and al-Douri.
• Look-alikes don't. Putin vs Potanin, Maria vs Aria and Bank vs TBank are all rejected.
• Aliases count. Every a.k.a. on every list is searched, and matchedOn tells you whether the hit was the primary name or an alias.

A score of 100 is an exact match after normalizing. Around 90 is a likely spelling variant. Around 85 is worth a human look.

A clear result you can trust

A name is only marked clear when every list you asked for actually loaded. If a government server is down, names with no match come back as incomplete, and listsUnavailable says which list is missing. A screening tool that reports "clear" after silently skipping a list is worse than none.

Re-screen your book on a schedule

Lists change weekly. Save your customer list as the input, turn on onlyChanged and schedule a daily run. After the first run, you only hear about:

• new-match: someone on your list has just been designated
• match-removed: a match disappeared, usually a delisting
• new-name: a name you added since the last run

Run it as an API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/arched_friend~sanctions-screening-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "names": ["Sberbank", "Northwind Trading LLC"],
    "entityType": "entity",
    "onlyMatches": true
  }'

Pricing

You pay $0.005 for each name screened, whether it matches or not.

Screening 1,000 names a month	Monthly cost
Checking each name on four government search sites	days of work
Enterprise screening platforms	often $300+ per month plus setup
This Actor	$5

Common questions

Is this legal advice or a compliance program? No. It's a screening aid. A potential match is a lead to review against the official record (linked in sourceUrl), not a finding. Your obligations depend on where you operate.

How many names fit in one run? About 1,000 in the default 240-second budget. For bigger books, raise timeBudgetSecs or split the list across runs.

Why did "Bank" or a common first name return nothing? Very generic words count for less, so a single common word doesn't match half the list. Screen full names.

Does it check dates of birth? Not yet. Dates of birth and nationalities are returned for each match so a reviewer can rule a hit in or out quickly.

Do I need an API key? No. All five lists are public downloads from OFAC, the UN, the UK government and the EU.

Related products

• Federal Contract Finder and UK Tender Monitor to vet counterparties in public contracts
• Company Hiring Monitor and Tech Stack Checker for wider due diligence on a company
• FDA Recall Monitor for supplier risk in food, drugs and devices