Global Sanctions Screening API - OFAC, EU, UK & UN Watchlists

Screen any person or company against the world's main sanctions lists in one call. Paste a list of names and get a scored, explained match against the consolidated US OFAC (SDN + non-SDN), EU, UK OFSI, and UN Security Council lists - or switch to list mode and export the full normalized watchlist as one clean schema.

Every sanctions authority publishes its list in a different format with a different alias model: OFAC ships flat CSV with names and aliases in separate files and the date of birth buried in free text; the EU and UN ship deeply nested XML; the UK ships a wide CSV where one entity is spread across many rows joined by a group ID. Most "OFAC scrapers" hand you one raw list. This Actor does the hard part: it pulls the primary government sources, normalizes all five into one canonical entity (primary name, every alias, type, programs, countries, dates of birth, IDs, listing date), and runs a fuzzy matching engine so reordered names (Putin Vladimir), transliterations, and subsidiaries (Gazprombank JSC) still surface - each with a similarity score, a match type, and the exact name it hit.

✅ What you get / ❌ what this isn't

This Actor gives you	This Actor is not
One call screens a name across five lists at once	Not a certified or complete compliance/KYC solution - it is a screening data tool
Fuzzy matching with a score, match type, and the matched alias	Not legal advice or a regulatory sign-off
Consolidated, normalized schema across OFAC, EU, UK, UN	Not affiliated with or endorsed by any government or authority
Built from primary official sources, not a re-publisher	Not a guarantee of completeness - always confirm a hit against the official source
riskLevel buckets (EXACT / HIGH / MEDIUM / CLEAR) for triage	Not a PEP, adverse-media, or credit/background service (sanctions lists only)
Full-watchlist export mode for your own systems	Not real-time intraday - reflects each authority's published refresh

🔎 Why use this Actor

• Screen customers, vendors, counterparties, or payees against sanctions lists before onboarding or payment.
• Batch-check an existing CRM, KYC queue, or supplier list in one run.
• Get one consolidated answer instead of querying five government sites with five different formats.
• Catch near-misses: reordered names, aliases, transliterations, and sanctioned subsidiaries.
• Export the full normalized watchlist to power your own matching engine, dashboard, or model.
• Skip the plumbing - downloading, parsing, alias-joining, and de-duplicating five sources is done.

👥 Who it's for

• Fintech, payments, crypto, and lending teams running sanctions checks at onboarding.
• Compliance, AML, and KYC analysts triaging names against OFAC/EU/UK/UN.
• Procurement and vendor-onboarding teams screening suppliers and counterparties.
• Marketplaces and platforms vetting sellers, partners, or high-value buyers.
• Data teams that want one clean watchlist schema instead of five parsing projects.

🗂️ What data you get

Screen mode - one row per name you submit:

Field	Type	Description
query	string	The name you screened
isMatch	boolean	Whether any match cleared the threshold
riskLevel	string	EXACT / HIGH / MEDIUM / CLEAR
bestScore	number	Top similarity score (0-1)
matchCount	number	How many list entities matched
matches[]	array	Each match: matchedName, score, matchType, sourceList, entityName, entityType, programs, countries, nationalities, datesOfBirth, sourceId, sourceUrl

List mode - one row per consolidated watchlist entity:

Field	Type	Description
sourceList	string	OFAC_SDN / OFAC_CONS / EU / UK_OFSI / UN
entityType	string	PERSON / ORGANIZATION / VESSEL / AIRCRAFT
primaryName, aliases[]	string / array	Primary name plus every alias
programs[]	array	Sanctions programs / regimes / reference numbers
countries[], nationalities[]	array	Associated countries and nationalities
datesOfBirth[]	array	Dates or years of birth
ids[]	array	Passport / national-ID numbers where published
addresses[]	array	Addresses where published
listedOn	string	Date listed
sourceId, sourceUrl	string	Native source ID and the official list URL

Example tasks

• Screen a list of names against all sanctions lists
• Screen suppliers and counterparties before onboarding
• Export the full consolidated sanctions watchlist

⚙️ How to screen names

1. Open the Actor on Apify.
2. Keep mode on screen and paste names into names (one per line).
3. Optionally pick which lists to load in sources, and tune threshold (85 is balanced).
4. Run the Actor and open the Screening results dataset view.
5. Export JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, or XML, or call the Actor through the Apify API.

To pull the full watchlist instead, set mode to list and choose your sources.

📥 Input

{
  "mode": "screen",
  "names": "Vladimir Putin\nGazprombank\nAcme Coffee Roasters LLC",
  "sources": ["OFAC_SDN", "OFAC_CONS", "EU", "UK_OFSI", "UN"],
  "threshold": 85,
  "maxMatchesPerName": 10
}

📤 Output

{
  "recordType": "screening_result",
  "query": "Vladimir Putin",
  "isMatch": true,
  "riskLevel": "EXACT",
  "bestScore": 1.0,
  "matchCount": 4,
  "matches": [
    {
      "matchedName": "PUTIN, Vladimir",
      "score": 1.0,
      "matchType": "exact",
      "sourceList": "OFAC_SDN",
      "entityName": "PUTIN, Vladimir Vladimirovich",
      "entityType": "PERSON",
      "programs": ["RUSSIA-EO14024"],
      "sourceId": "39463",
      "sourceUrl": "https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/"
    }
  ]
}

💵 How much does it cost?

The launch price is about $5.00 / 1,000 results, tier-discounted for higher Apify plans. In screen mode, one screened name is one charged result; in list mode, one exported watchlist entity is one charged result. A run screening 200 names is 200 results.

🔁 Run it on the Apify platform

Schedule a recurring run to re-screen a customer or supplier list as the lists change, call it from the Apify API, export to CSV/JSON/Excel, or connect the dataset to Make, Zapier, webhooks, a warehouse, a case-management tool, or an LLM workflow. Each run loads the current published lists, so results stay fresh.

⚠️ Limits and caveats

• This is a screening data tool, not a certified compliance solution. It does not replace a regulated KYC/AML program, legal review, or human adjudication. Always confirm any hit against the official source before acting.
• Sanctions lists only. It does not cover PEP, adverse media, law-enforcement, or credit/background data.
• A match is a lead, not a verdict. Fuzzy matching surfaces possible hits by name; common names will produce false positives that a human must clear, and the threshold controls that trade-off.
• Completeness is best-effort. The Actor reads the published consolidated files; if an authority's endpoint is temporarily down, that source is skipped and noted in the run summary rather than failing the run.
• Data reflects each authority's published refresh cadence, not intraday real time.
• Non-Latin (e.g. Cyrillic, Arabic) primary names are preserved; matching works best on the Latin-script names and aliases each list provides.

🧩 Related Actors

• EU Tenders API - normalized TED public procurement in one English schema.
• Brazil CNPJ Company API - clean English firmographics for any Brazil CNPJ.
• SEC Financials API - normalized income, balance sheet, and cash flow from EDGAR.
• Lead List Deduplicator - CRM-ready dedup and normalization for lead lists.

❓ FAQ

Which lists are covered?

US OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), the OFAC Consolidated (non-SDN) list, the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List, the UK OFSI Consolidated List, and the UN Security Council Consolidated List. You choose any subset with sources.

Where does the data come from?

Directly from each authority's primary published file (US Treasury, the EU, UK OFSI, and the UN), not from a third-party re-publisher. Each run downloads the current lists.

How does the matching work?

Names are normalized (de-accented, de-punctuated) and compared with a combination of exact, token-set, token-sort, and character-sequence similarity, so reordered names, aliases, and contained company names score high. Each match returns a score and a match type so you can triage.

Will it produce false positives?

Yes, by design - screening favors recall. Common names can match multiple list entries. Raise threshold for fewer, stronger matches; lower it for wider recall. A human should always review flagged names.

Is this enough to meet my compliance obligations?

No. This Actor is a data and screening tool. It is not a certified compliance product, not legal advice, and not a substitute for a regulated KYC/AML process. Use it as one input and confirm hits against the official source.

Does it need a proxy?

No. All sources are public official government files served reliably to datacenter IPs. Enable Apify Proxy only if you hit a network issue.

🛠️ Support

For bugs, missing fields, or a feature request, open an Actor issue with the run URL, the names or sources used, and the field or behavior you expected.

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