Global Sanctions & Watchlist Screen — US (OFAC/BIS/State) + UN + EU + UK

Screen a person or business name across the big four public sanctions and watchlist sources in a single call:

• US — the full U.S. Government Consolidated Screening List (CSL) (OFAC SDN + Treasury non-SDN lists, Commerce/BIS lists, and State Department lists)
• UN — the UN Security Council Consolidated List (all UNSC sanctions committees)
• EU — the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List (FSF / FISMA)
• UK — the UK Sanctions List (OFSI / FCDO)

Every match is tagged with the specific source list and its jurisdiction (US / UN / EU / UK), so you can see exactly which government list flagged the name. An optional jurisdictions filter lets you screen against any subset.

Lists covered

US — Consolidated Screening List (12 lists in one bulk feed)

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

International

Jurisdiction	List	Maintained by
UN	UN Security Council Consolidated List	UN Security Council
EU	EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List (FSF)	European Commission (FISMA)
UK	UK Sanctions List	OFSI / FCDO (HM Treasury)

What it does

1. Fetches each selected source fresh on every run — the US CSL bulk JSON from data.trade.gov, plus the UN, EU, and UK sanctions XML feeds — and normalizes all of them into one common record shape.
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), each tagged with its source list and jurisdiction.
4. Resilient by design: if an international feed is temporarily unreachable, the run logs a warning and continues with the remaining lists — a single downed source never fails the whole run.

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
jurisdictions	string[]	[] (all)	Restrict to any of US, UN, EU, UK (case-insensitive). Empty = all four
lists	string[]	[] (all)	Optional finer filter: source-list name substrings (e.g. ["SDN", "Entity List", "UN Security Council"]), matched case-insensitively against each hit's source

Input example

{
  "name": "Wagner Group",
  "minScore": 85,
  "includeAliases": true,
  "jurisdictions": ["US", "UN", "EU", "UK"]
}

Output record shape

Each dataset item contains:

• name — Primary name on the list
• matchedOn — "primary" or "aka"
• score — 0–100 fuzzy-match score
• jurisdiction — "US" | "UN" | "EU" | "UK"
• source — The specific source list (e.g. "Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) - Treasury Department", "UN Security Council Consolidated List", "EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List", "UK Sanctions List (OFSI/FCDO)")
• type — Individual | Entity | Vessel | Aircraft (where available)
• programs — Array of sanctions/control program codes or regime names
• akaList — Array of alternate/AKA name strings
• addresses — Array of address strings
• ids — Array of {type, number, country?} structured IDs (passport / national ID / document numbers, where available)
• federalRegisterNotice — Federal Register citation (US BIS lists; null for international sources)
• uid — Source-specific unique ID (US CSL id, or UN-… / EU-… / UK-…)
• sourceListUrl — 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 against US, UN, EU, and UK lists before onboarding
• Global sanctions / AML compliance — one call covers OFAC (US), UN, EU, and UK designations
• Export control compliance — screen suppliers and customers against BIS Entity List, DPL, UVL, MEU
• State Dept ITAR — check against ITAR Debarred and Nonproliferation Sanctions
• Business entity verification — cross-reference company names from business registration tools (see Secretary of State Business Entity Search (KYB))

Cross-sell

Pair this actor with the Secretary of State Business Entity Search (KYB) to: (1) pull public registry data on a company across 28 states, (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 sources and scope

All sources are public / open government data, fetched fresh on each run. No API keys, no login, no paid feeds.

• US — U.S. International Trade Administration Consolidated Screening List (data.trade.gov). U.S. Government Works (public domain). Updated daily.
• UN — UN Security Council Consolidated List (scsanctions.un.org).
• EU — EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List, published by the European Commission (FISMA) via the FSF export service.
• UK — UK Sanctions List, published by OFSI / FCDO (sanctionslist.fcdo.gov.uk).

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.
• Coverage is the big-four public lists above; it does not include every national or regional list (e.g. OFAC does not equal every US list, and other countries maintain their own).
• Results reflect each source's snapshot published at the time of the run.
• EU feed maintenance note: the EU FSF export is served via a public (password-free) download link that carries a token query parameter. The token is long-lived but the EU can rotate it; if the EU feed ever stops returning data, the token in src/sources.js needs a one-line refresh. The other three feeds (US/UN/UK) use stable URLs. If the EU source is down, the run still returns US/UN/UK results.

FAQ

How do I check if a company or person is on a global sanctions or watchlist? Run this actor with the name you want to screen. It matches that name against the US Consolidated Screening List (OFAC SDN, BIS Entity List, State Dept, and more), the UN Security Council list, the EU consolidated financial sanctions list, and the UK Sanctions List — and returns any matches with the specific list and jurisdiction that flagged them.

Which watchlists does it screen against? US (all 12 CSL sources: OFAC SDN, CAP, SSI, CMIC, NS-MBS, PLC; BIS Entity List, DPL, UVL, MEU; State Dept ITAR Debarred and Nonproliferation), plus the UN Security Council Consolidated List, the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List, and the UK Sanctions List. Use the jurisdictions input to screen any subset.

Can I screen only one jurisdiction? Yes. Set jurisdictions to any subset, e.g. ["US"] for US-only (the original behavior), or ["EU","UK"] for Europe only.

Is there a free global sanctions / OFAC screening API? This actor is pay-per-result — you only pay for matches returned, and a clean (zero-match) screen costs only base compute. All underlying data is public / open government data, sourced live from the official feeds.

How does it avoid false positives? It scores each candidate with Jaro-Winkler + Dice bigram similarity plus token-overlap guards, and only returns matches above your minScore (default 85). Raise it to 90+ for higher precision.

Is this a substitute for a compliance program? No. It's for research and pre-screening. It is not a certified AML / sanctions compliance program or legal advice; consult a compliance specialist for a full program.