Sanctions Screening & Denied Party Screening (OFAC, UK, EU, BIS)

This sanctions screening and denied party screening Actor checks customers, suppliers and business partners against the official sanctions and export control lists of the US, the UK and the EU. Each party gets a clear status of clear, review or likely match, every candidate hit with its list name, entry ID, programs and official source link, and a probability that the hit really is the same party. That probability is what cuts the flood of false positives that simple name matching produces.

The hard part of sanctions screening is not finding similar names. It is the flood of false positives. A customer called Mohammad Hassan, born 1990 and living in Germany, matches dozens of listed people on name alone. This Actor first finds every similar name in code (spelling variants, transliteration, word order, aliases), then compares all the attributes you know: date of birth, country, type of party, address and ID numbers. Each candidate gets a calibrated probability, and the decision rules are fixed in code, so a name-only hit is never silently cleared and a conflicting date of birth is never ignored.

This product uses the International Trade Administration's Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the International Trade Administration. Not affiliated with or endorsed by OFAC, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the UK FCDO or the European Commission.

This is a screening aid, not legal advice. It helps a person decide faster. Final decisions on any hit must be made by a qualified human in your organisation.

Who uses it

• Exporters and freight forwarders who need a denied-party check (BIS Entity List, Denied Persons, OFAC) before shipping.
• E-commerce sellers and brands that pay suppliers abroad and want a record that they checked them.
• Fintechs, marketplaces and payment teams screening merchants and payees in batches.
• German and EU companies doing their Sanktionslistenprüfung for customers and suppliers.
• Compliance teams who want fewer false positives in their review queue, with the evidence for each decision.

Lists screened

Key	List	Publisher
ofac_sdn	OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List	US Treasury, OFAC
ofac_consolidated	OFAC Consolidated (non-SDN) List: SSI, FSE, NS-MBS, CMIC, PLC and others	US Treasury, OFAC
us_csl	US Consolidated Screening List: BIS Entity List, Denied Persons List, Unverified List, Military End User List, State Department ITAR Debarred and Nonproliferation Sanctions	US Department of Commerce, ITA
uk	UK Sanctions List	UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
eu	EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List	European Commission

The UN Security Council Consolidated List is not screened. The UN website terms allow its data only for personal, non-commercial use, which a paid screening tool cannot meet. The EU and UK lists implement UN Security Council designations, so UN-listed parties are normally on those lists too.

Every list is downloaded fresh from the official government source at the start of each run. The OFAC lists come straight from OFAC; from the Consolidated Screening List the Actor only takes the Commerce and State Department lists, so OFAC entries are not counted twice. In a test on 29 October 2026 the six lists held 39,879 records with 105,734 names and aliases.

What you get

One row per party

Field	What it means
reference, partyName, partyType, partyCountry, partyDateOfBirth	What you sent in
status	clear (no candidate, or all cleared), review (a human should look) or likely_match
highestProbability	The highest probability among the candidates that the party is the listed one
summary	One sentence for your review queue
candidatesFound, candidatesNeedingReview	How many similar names were checked, and how many were not cleared
filteredByType	Similar names skipped because the listed type differs (for example a vessel when you screen a person)
candidates	The full list, described below

Each candidate

Field	What it means
status	likely_match, review or cleared
sameEntityProbability	Probability from 0 to 1 that the party and the listed entry are the same real-world party
matchStrength	A score from 0 to 4 with a level: different, weak, name_only, strong or confirmed
nameVariantProbability, attributeConflictProbability	Is the name really the same name, and does any attribute conflict
list, listName, entryId, listedName	Which list, which entry, under which name
programs, listedOn	Sanctions programs or regimes, and the listing date where published
sourceUrl, legalBasisUrl	Link to the official entry or list page, and for EU entries the legal act
evidence	Side by side: name and name similarity, date of birth, country, type, ID numbers and addresses, each with a result such as match, partial, conflict, differs or unknown

Audit summary for your compliance file

Each run also saves an AUDIT record in the key-value store (linked in the Output tab): start and end time, run ID, the publication date of every list version used, record counts, the SHA-256 hash of every downloaded file, counts per status, your thresholds and a short description of the method. Keep it next to the results and you can show which list version each decision was based on.

How the decision works

1. Candidates. Names on both sides are converted to Latin letters (Cyrillic, Arabic and others), legal-form words like LLC, GmbH or OOO are removed, and every listed name and alias is compared word-order free, with tolerance for spelling variants such as Mohammed and Muhammad. Names at or above the minimum similarity become candidates.
2. Attribute check. Each candidate is compared with everything you gave for the party. Date of birth, country and ID numbers are compared in code and passed on with the full listed record.
3. Probability. An AI check answers four fixed questions per candidate: same party or not, how strong the evidence is, whether the name is really the same name, and whether an attribute conflicts. All answers are probabilities.
4. Rules in code.
   • likely_match needs a probability at or above your threshold (0.75 by default) and strong evidence beyond the name.
   • A name-only hit with nothing to rule it out goes to review, never to cleared.
   • A conflicting date of birth caps the probability at 0.1.
   • A weak name match with a clear attribute conflict and a probability under 0.3 is cleared.
   • Anything the check could not finish goes to review.

How to run it

1. Add your parties in Parties to screen. Only name is required:

[
  {"reference": "C-1001", "name": "Mohammad Hassan", "type": "individual", "country": "DE", "dateOfBirth": "1990-05-01"},
  {"reference": "S-2002", "name": "Rosneft Oil Company", "type": "entity", "country": "RU"},
  {"reference": "S-2003", "name": "Siemens AG", "type": "entity", "country": "DE"}
]

Optional fields: type (individual, entity, vessel, aircraft), country, dateOfBirth (YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY), address, idNumber, aliases (a list) and reference (your own ID, returned unchanged). 2. Keep all lists selected for a full screen, or pick the ones your policy requires. 3. Start the run. A batch of a few parties finishes in well under a minute, most of it spent downloading the lists. Larger batches add only seconds per party. 4. Filter the results by status. Work through likely_match and review, and file the AUDIT record.

You can also call the Actor from your own system through the Apify API and screen every new customer or supplier as it comes in.

Example output

The three parties above, run on 29 October 2026:

Party	Status	Top probability	Summary
Mohammad Hassan (individual, DE, born 1990)	review	0.40	8 similar names found, 7 cleared, 1 left for a human look
Rosneft Oil Company (entity, RU)	likely_match	0.99	Listed on the BIS Entity List, OFAC SDN, OFAC non-SDN (SSI) and the UK Sanctions List
Siemens AG (entity, DE)	clear	0	No similar names on the screened lists

For Mohammad Hassan, seven of the eight name hits had a different year of birth and were cleared at 0.04 to 0.06. One stayed in review: a listed person with the exact alias "Muhammad Hassan" and no date of birth on the list, so only the country speaks against it. That one, shortened:

{
  "status": "review",
  "sameEntityProbability": 0.4,
  "matchStrength": {"score": 0.99, "level": "weak", "confidence": 0.17},
  "nameVariantProbability": 0.7,
  "attributeConflictProbability": 0.9,
  "list": "uk",
  "listName": "UK Sanctions List",
  "entryId": "SYR0409",
  "listedName": "Mohammad Hassan Kanjou",
  "programs": ["Asset freeze|Travel Ban|Director Disqualification Sanction", "The Syria (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019"],
  "listedOn": "2023-12-07",
  "evidence": {
    "name": {"party": "Mohammad Hassan", "list": "Muhammad Hassan", "nameScore": 93.3},
    "dateOfBirth": {"party": "1990-05-01", "list": [], "result": "unknown"},
    "country": {"party": "DE", "list": ["SY"], "result": "differs"},
    "entityType": {"party": "individual", "list": "individual", "result": "match"}
  }
}

When we screened "Vladimir Putin" with his date of birth, the OFAC, UK and EU entries came back as likely_match at 0.99, and a similar name with a different date of birth (Vladimir Tyurin) was cleared at 0.03.

How to use the sanctions screening Actor via API

You can run the sanctions screening Actor in the Apify Console, or call it from your own code through the Apify API. The API tab of this Actor has ready-to-copy examples for the JavaScript and Python API clients, the Apify CLI, plain HTTP and the OpenAPI definition. To use it from an AI assistant or agent, connect the Apify MCP server and add this Actor as a tool.

Send the same JSON input you would fill in the form, for example a list of parties with name, type, country and date of birth, start a run, and read the results from the run's default dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel. You can also schedule runs in Apify.

Pricing

You pay per event and there's no subscription. Each screened party is one "party screened" event, whether it comes back clear or not, and that price includes the attribute check of all its candidates. If a candidate check fails, that party row is free and marked for review. A run that cannot download a list stops before screening and charges nothing beyond the small start fee.

Tips

• Give a date of birth and country for people, and a country and registration number for companies. Most false positives are cleared by those two fields alone.
• Name-only screens (the Quick list of names field) work, but more hits will land in review, because there is nothing to rule them out.
• Lower Minimum name similarity to 80 if your data has many spelling variants. You will get more candidates to check.
• Lower Review from probability if your policy is very cautious. Cleared candidates always stay in the output with their probability, so nothing is hidden.
• review hits on related companies (for example subsidiaries of a listed group in other countries) are worth a look: ownership rules such as the OFAC 50% rule can apply to entities that are not listed by name.
• Screen again whenever the lists change. Schedule the Actor daily or weekly on your customer and supplier lists.

FAQ

Is this legal advice? No. This is a screening aid. It does not decide whether a transaction is allowed, and it does not replace your compliance program, a licence check or a lawyer. Every likely_match and review needs a decision by a qualified person, and that person should confirm the hit on the official list before acting.

Where does the data come from, and may it be used? Only from official public sources, downloaded fresh for every run. OFAC lists and the US Consolidated Screening List are works of the US Government and are in the public domain. This product uses the International Trade Administration's Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the International Trade Administration. The UK Sanctions List contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The EU list is published by the European Commission for reuse with source acknowledgement. No commercial or third-party sanctions databases are used.

How current are the lists? As current as the official files at the moment your run starts. The publication date of each list is in the AUDIT record. OFAC and the UK update their files often, sometimes daily; the EU file is updated whenever a change is published.

What about personal data and GDPR? Parties can be individuals, so your input is personal data. Screening customers and suppliers against sanctions lists is usually based on a legal obligation or your legitimate interest (GDPR Article 6 (1)(c) or (f)), but you are responsible for your own legal basis. The Actor only uses the fields you send, does not enrich them from other sources and does not log names. To score each candidate, the party fields you send and the candidate list entries are sent to our AI processing provider in the USA, which processes them for that score under its data processing terms (these include the EU Standard Contractual Clauses). We keep nothing after the run; the results stay in your own Apify storage. Send only the fields you need, and delete runs you no longer need or set a short data retention in your Apify settings.

Does it cover PEPs or adverse media? No. It covers sanctions and export control lists only.

Does it check ownership (50% rule)? No. It screens the names you send. If you know the owners of a company, add them as separate parties.

How accurate is it? Every candidate comes with a probability and the evidence compared, so you can check each one in seconds. In our tests, clear cases on both sides were decided with probabilities near 0.99 or near 0.05, and name-only hits went to review. Like any screening tool it can miss a party listed under a name that is very different from the one you have, so keep aliases in your data.

How do I run an OFAC search for many names at once? Add your parties, or paste names into the Quick list of names field, and keep the ofac_sdn and ofac_consolidated lists selected. Each name is checked against every OFAC entry and alias in one run.

What is denied party screening, and which lists does it cover? It checks a party against export control lists before you ship or pay. This Actor covers the US Consolidated Screening List from Commerce and State (BIS Entity List, Denied Persons List, Unverified List, Military End User List, ITAR Debarred and Nonproliferation Sanctions) next to the OFAC, UK and EU sanctions lists.

Can I use it for a Sanktionslistenprüfung in Germany? Yes. It screens against the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List as well as the UK and US lists, and saves an AUDIT record with the version of every list used, so you can document the check.

Something broke or a list failed to load? Open an issue on the Issues tab and we'll look at it.

About Reliable Tools

This Actor is made by Reliable Tools. We build tools that return clean data plus a calibrated AI check with a probability, so you can filter and act on the results straight away.

If a result looks wrong or a list doesn't load the way you expect, open an issue on the Issues tab. We read every one and usually reply within a day. You can find our other Actors on our profile page.