US Government Watchlist Screen — OFAC, BIS & State Dept (Consolidated Screening List)

Screen a person or business name against the complete U.S. Government Consolidated Screening List (CSL) — a single public-domain bulk source maintained by the U.S. International Trade Administration that combines all major government watchlists into one endpoint.

Lists covered (12 sources)

Agency	List	Abbreviation
Treasury / OFAC	Specially Designated Nationals	SDN
Treasury / OFAC	Capta List	CAP
Treasury / OFAC	Sectoral Sanctions Identifications	SSI
Treasury / OFAC	Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies	CMIC
Treasury / OFAC	Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions	NS-MBS
Treasury / OFAC	Palestinian Legislative Council	PLC
Commerce / BIS	Entity List	EL
Commerce / BIS	Denied Persons List	DPL
Commerce / BIS	Unverified List	UVL
Commerce / BIS	Military End-User List	MEU
State Department	ITAR Debarred	DTC
State Department	Nonproliferation Sanctions	ISN

What it does

1. Fetches the full CSL bulk JSON from data.trade.gov — a single ~30 MB public-domain file covering all 12 lists above (~25,000+ entries).
2. Matches your query against primary names and AKA/alternate names using Jaro-Winkler + Dice bigram similarity with token-overlap false-positive guards.
3. Returns only matches above your configured score threshold (default 85/100).
4. Each result carries the specific source list the entity matched (e.g. Entity List (EL) - Bureau of Industry and Security), so you can see exactly which US government list flagged the name.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
name	string	required	Person or business name to screen
minScore	integer	85	Match score threshold (0–100); 85 balances recall vs. false-positive rate
includeAliases	boolean	true	Also match against AKA / alternate names
maxResults	integer	100	Cap on returned matches
lists	string[]	[] (all)	Optional: restrict screening to specific lists (case-insensitive substring match against the CSL source field, e.g. ["SDN", "Entity List"])

Output record shape

Each dataset item contains:

• name — Primary name on the list
• matchedOn — "primary" or "aka"
• score — 0–100 fuzzy-match score
• source — The specific source list (e.g. "Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) - Treasury Department")
• type — Individual | Entity | Vessel | Aircraft (where available)
• programs — Array of sanctions/control program codes
• akaList — Array of alternate/AKA name strings
• addresses — Array of address strings
• ids — Array of {type, number, country?} structured IDs
• federalRegisterNotice — Federal Register citation (BIS lists)
• uid — CSL internal entity ID
• sourceListUrl — Direct URL to the official source list
• remarks — Free-text remarks from the source agency

Billing

Pay-per-result (Apify PPE): each matched record in the dataset counts as one item. A query that returns zero matches costs only the base compute time — not per-result charges.

Use cases

• KYC / KYB pre-screening — check counterparty names before onboarding
• Export control compliance — screen suppliers and customers against BIS Entity List, DPL, UVL, MEU
• AML / sanctions compliance — OFAC SDN + non-SDN lists in one call
• State Dept ITAR — check against ITAR Debarred and Nonproliferation Sanctions
• Business entity verification — cross-reference company names from business registration tools (see Business KYB Scraper)

Cross-sell

Pair this actor with the Business KYB Scraper to: (1) pull public registry data on a company, (2) run the company name + all officers through this watchlist screen, (3) get a full KYB package in one workflow.

Automate compliance workflows with secretary-of-state filing data from FilingSheet — structured business entity data with officer names ready for screening.

Data source and scope

Source: U.S. International Trade Administration — Consolidated Screening List (data.trade.gov). Published under U.S. Government Works (public domain). Data is fetched fresh on each run; ITA updates the CSL daily.

Caveats

• This tool is for research and informational purposes. It is not a substitute for a certified AML/sanctions compliance program or legal advice.
• Fuzzy matching may produce false positives at low thresholds. Tune minScore for your use case. The default 85 is conservative; 90+ gives higher precision with some recall loss.
• The CSL does not include every US government watchlist (e.g. FBI Most Wanted, state-level lists). For a complete AML program, consult a compliance specialist.
• Results reflect the CSL snapshot published at the time of the run.