Sanctions Screening API: OFAC, UK, EU & UN Lists

What it does: Screen people, companies and vessels against OFAC SDN, UK, EU and UN sanctions lists with fuzzy matching, in one call.

Who it's for: KYC/AML, fintech onboarding, payments, trade-compliance and procurement agents.

Price: Pay per event: $0.01 per name screened. Errors are not charged. You only pay Apify for what you run; there is no monthly fee for this Actor.

Screen any person, company or vessel name against the four main official sanctions lists in one call:

• US OFAC SDN (Specially Designated Nationals, incl. aliases)
• UK Sanctions List (FCDO, the list OFSI asset freezes are based on)
• EU Financial Sanctions (consolidated FSF list)
• UN Security Council Consolidated List

Fuzzy matching handles word order ("PUTIN, Vladimir" = "Vladimir Putin"), accents and transliteration, punctuation and company suffixes (Ltd, LLC, JSC...). Lists are downloaded fresh from the official sources (cached up to 6 hours).

Input

{"requests": [{"name": "Vladimir Putin"}, {"name": "Gazprombank", "type": "entity"}], "threshold": 85}

Per-request options: threshold (50-100), limit (max matches, default 10), type (individual / entity / vessel), lists (e.g. ["OFAC","UK"]).

Output (one row per name)

query, match_found, risk (high ≥95 / review / clear), top_score, matches[] (list, id, name, aliases, programmes, DOB, remarks, score), lists_checked (status and size of each list), lists_built_at.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.01 per name screened. Errors (e.g. empty name) are not charged.

Sources and licences

US Treasury OFAC (US public domain), UK FCDO UK Sanctions List (Open Government Licence v3), European Commission FSF (EU reuse policy), UN Security Council (public).

Disclaimer: an automated screening aid, not legal advice. Always confirm a possible match against the official list (DOB, nationality, identifiers) before acting.

Quick example

Input

{
 "requests": [
  {
   "name": "Vladimir Putin"
  },
  {
   "name": "Acme Widgets Ltd"
  }
 ],
 "threshold": 85
}

Output (one dataset item, shortened)

{
 "query": "Vladimir Putin",
 "match_found": true,
 "match_count": 4,
 "top_score": 100,
 "risk": "high",
 "matches": [
  {
   "score": 100,
   "matched_name": "putin vladimir",
   "list": "US OFAC SDN",
   "id": "35096",
   "name": "PUTIN, Vladimir Vladimirovich",
   "type": "individual",
   "programs": [
    "RUSSIA-EO14024"
   ],
   "aliases": [
    "PUTIN, Vladimir"
   ],
   "remarks": "DOB 07 Oct 1952; POB Leningrad, Russia; nationality Russia; citizen Russia; Gender Male; Secondary sanctions risk: See Section 11 of Executive Order 14024.; Pre..."
  },
  {
   "score": 100,
   "matched_name": "vladimir putin",
   "list": "UK Sanctions List (FCDO/OFSI)",
   "id": "RUS0251",
   "name": "Vladimir Vladimirovich PUTIN",
   "type": "individual",
   "programs": [
    "The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019"
   ],
   "aliases": [
    "владимир владимирович путин",
    "Vladimir Putin"
   ],
   "dob": "07/10/1952",
   "nationality": "Russia",
   "designated": "25/02/2022",
   "sanctions": "Asset freeze|Trust Services Sanctions|Director Disqualification Sanction"
  },
  "..."
 ],
 "lists_checked": {
  "US OFAC SDN": {
   "ok": true,
   "entries": 19457
  },
  "UK Sanctions List": {
   "ok": true,
   "entries": 6408
  },
  "EU FSF": {
   "ok": true,
   "entries": 6234
  },
  "UN Consolidated": {
   "ok": true,
   "entries": 1010
  }
 },
 "lists_built_at": "2026-10-21T12:02:04Z",
 "error": null,
 "disclaimer": "Automated fuzzy screening aid. Not legal advice; confirm any match against the official list before acting."
}

Use it from AI agents (MCP) and code

• Apify MCP server: add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=tudorlane/sanctions-screening to Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT connectors, VS Code or any MCP client (sign in with Apify OAuth or an API token). The Actor appears as a tool the model can call.
• REST (sync): POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tudorlane~sanctions-screening/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN with the input JSON as the body; results come back in the response.
• SDKs / no-code: apify-client (Python/JS), LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, n8n, Make and Zapier integrations.

FAQ

How fresh are the lists? Downloaded from the official sources, cached at most 6 hours.

False positives? Raise threshold or filter by type/lists; always confirm matches on the official list.

Ongoing monitoring? See our Sanctions Watchlist Monitor (coming soon).

What if the source is down? You get an error row and are not charged for it.

Support? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

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Keywords: sanctions screening API, OFAC API, SDN check, UK sanctions list, EU sanctions, UN sanctions, AML screening, KYC API, MCP tool, Apify Actor, AI agent tool.