Automated SDN list compliance for businesses of all sizes. Screen entities against OFAC sanctions lists in seconds, not hours.
OFAC stands for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury responsible for administering and enforcing economic and trade sanctions. OFAC maintains several sanctions lists, the most prominent being the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List, which contains thousands of individuals, companies, and organizations that U.S. persons are prohibited from doing business with.
OFAC screening is the process of checking the names and identifying information of your customers, counterparties, and business partners against these sanctions lists. All U.S. persons, including citizens, permanent residents, entities organized under U.S. law, and anyone physically located in the United States, are required to comply with OFAC regulations. This obligation extends to foreign branches and subsidiaries of U.S. companies.
The consequences of non-compliance are severe. OFAC can impose civil penalties of up to $330,000 per violation under a strict liability standard, meaning you can be penalized even if you had no knowledge that the other party was sanctioned. Criminal violations can result in fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment of up to 20 years. In recent years, OFAC enforcement actions have resulted in penalties totaling hundreds of millions of dollars against financial institutions, technology companies, and other businesses.
Manual OFAC screening, searching names one by one on the OFAC website, is error-prone, time-consuming, and fundamentally unscalable. It fails to account for name variations, transliterations, or aliases, and provides no audit trail. This is why modern businesses rely on automated OFAC screening software to ensure comprehensive, consistent, and documented compliance.
For a deeper practitioner-level explainer on OFAC screening mechanics, the SDN list, the 50% rule, and adjudication workflow, read our What Is OFAC Screening guide .
Statutory maximums are eye-watering, civil penalties up to $377,700 per violation, criminal up to $1m and 20 years. The real-world fines tell you more than the statutes.
$8.9 billion
Billions in prohibited transactions routed through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban counterparties. Plea agreement plus OFAC, DOJ and New York state penalties.
$968 million
OFAC settlement (plus separate FinCEN and DOJ components totalling $4.3 billion) for systemic failures to block trades involving users in sanctioned jurisdictions.
$24 million
More than 116,000 transactions worth nearly $263 million involving users in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria over several years. Onboarding screening existed; rescreening and geo-blocking did not.
$258M (combined US)
Combined US settlement (NYDFS + Federal Reserve) for processing payments on behalf of Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, Burmese and Sudanese parties through the U.S. financial system, with internal stripping of identifying information. OFAC's specific civil penalty was a smaller component (~$258K).
The quieter five- and six-figure settlements tell a similar story: freight forwarders letting a single shipment slip through, e-commerce platforms that did not geo-block Crimea quickly enough, payment processors that screened on day one and never rescreened. For context on why rescreening is non-negotiable, read our continuous sanctions monitoring guide .
SanctScan is purpose-built OFAC compliance software that combines powerful screening capabilities with an intuitive interface. Here is what sets it apart.
Screen names against the OFAC SDN list with advanced fuzzy matching that catches aliases, transliterations, and alternative spellings. Get results in seconds instead of hours of manual lookup.
Set up ongoing monitoring for your customers and counterparties. SanctScan automatically rescreens monitored entities and sends instant email or webhook alerts when risk profiles change.
Integrate OFAC screening directly into your onboarding flow, payment processing, or KYC workflow with our REST API. Simple JSON requests and responses with comprehensive documentation.
Screen hundreds or thousands of entities at once by uploading a CSV file. Track progress in real time and download results when complete, ideal for periodic portfolio-wide rescreening.
Go beyond OFAC with screening against EU, UK, UN, Australian, Canadian, Swiss, and Japanese sanctions lists. A single search covers all major international sanctions programs in one pass.
Every potential match receives a confidence-based risk score with full details on which lists triggered the match, the matched aliases, and the source data. Make faster, more informed compliance decisions.
Whether you need a simple OFAC screening tool for occasional checks or a full-featured sanctions screening platform for enterprise compliance, SanctScan scales with your business. Every plan includes access to all nine sanctions lists, risk scoring, and search history.
Get started with automated OFAC compliance in three simple steps. No lengthy onboarding, no implementation consultants, just sign up and start screening.
Type a single name into the search bar for an instant OFAC check, or upload a CSV file containing hundreds of entities for bulk screening. Either way, you get comprehensive results against all supported sanctions lists.
Within seconds, SanctScan returns a detailed screening report showing any potential matches, the confidence-based risk score for each match, which sanctions lists were hit, and the full entity details from the source data.
Add high-priority entities to continuous monitoring with a single click. SanctScan automatically rescreens them whenever sanctions lists are updated and sends you instant alerts via email or webhook if anything changes.
The entire process from account creation to your first OFAC screening takes less than two minutes. SanctScan handles the complexity of fuzzy matching, list updates, and risk scoring behind the scenes so your team can focus on reviewing results and making compliance decisions.
OFAC compliance is not limited to banks. Any business that deals with customers, vendors, or partners must ensure it is not engaging with sanctioned parties. Here are the industries where OFAC screening software is essential.
Subject to BSA/AML requirements and examined by federal regulators for OFAC compliance program effectiveness.
FinCEN-registered MSBs including money transmitters, check cashers, and currency exchanges must screen all transactions.
Digital financial services face the same OFAC obligations as traditional banks, often with higher transaction volumes and faster onboarding.
Must screen all parties in the supply chain, buyers, sellers, shipping companies, and end users, against OFAC lists before every shipment.
OFAC has specifically targeted crypto wallets and protocols. Exchanges must screen wallet addresses and counterparty names.
Required to screen policyholders, claimants, and beneficiaries. OFAC has issued significant penalties to insurers for compliance failures.
FinCEN Geographic Targeting Orders require title companies to identify beneficial owners, and all real estate transactions are subject to OFAC sanctions.
Professional service firms must ensure they are not providing services to sanctioned parties, especially in cross-border transactions.
Regardless of your industry, if your business touches U.S. commerce in any way, OFAC compliance software is not optional, it is a legal requirement. The strict liability standard means that ignorance is not a defense.
Transparent, predictable pricing with no hidden fees. Start free and scale as your compliance needs grow.
See how SanctScan compares to manual OFAC screening processes and traditional enterprise compliance solutions.
| Feature | SanctScan | Manual Process | Enterprise Solutions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Minutes | N/A | Weeks to months |
| Cost | From $0/mo | Staff time | Sales-quoted |
| OFAC SDN coverage | Partial | ||
| Additional global lists | 6 more lists | No | Varies |
| API access | No | Usually | |
| Continuous monitoring | No | Sometimes | |
| Bulk screening | No | Usually | |
| Rescreen on list update | Delta-driven | No | Batch weekly |
| Fuzzy match tuning | Transparent scores | N/A | Black box |
| 50% rule support | Owner screening | Manual only | |
| Audit trail | Per-decision log | Email threads | |
| Free tier | N/A | No |
SanctScan bridges the gap between manual processes that do not scale Enterprise platforms (Refinitiv World-Check, ComplyAdvantage Enterprise, NICE Actimize) are sold on multi-year sales-quoted contracts with multi-month implementations. SanctScan publishes its monthly pricing and ships a self-serve signup, without the implementation complexity.
OFAC screening is the process of checking individuals, organizations, and vessels against the sanctions lists maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The primary list is the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List. Businesses use OFAC screening software to ensure they do not engage in prohibited transactions with sanctioned parties.
OFAC screening should be performed at customer onboarding, before processing any transaction, and on an ongoing basis as sanctions lists are updated frequently, sometimes multiple times per week. Continuous monitoring is the gold standard for compliance, as it automatically rescreens your existing customers and counterparties whenever the SDN list changes.
If a match is found during an OFAC screening, you are required to block the transaction and freeze any assets associated with the designated party. You must file a blocking report with OFAC within 10 business days. Depending on the circumstances, you may also need to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) with FinCEN. Proceeding with a transaction involving a sanctioned party can result in severe civil and criminal penalties.
Yes. OFAC regulations apply to all U.S. persons, which includes U.S. citizens, permanent residents, entities organized under U.S. law, and anyone physically present in the United States. OFAC compliance operates under strict liability, meaning you can be penalized even if you did not know the other party was sanctioned. This is why automated OFAC screening software is essential for businesses of all sizes.
Automated OFAC screening software compares names and identifying information against the SDN list and other sanctions databases using fuzzy matching algorithms. This accounts for transliteration differences, spelling variations, and aliases. Each potential match receives a confidence-based risk score, allowing compliance teams to quickly triage results and focus on high-risk matches rather than manually reviewing every entry.
The SDN list (Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List) is maintained by OFAC and contains the names of individuals, companies, and organizations that are subject to U.S. economic sanctions. The list includes terrorists, narcotics traffickers, and those involved in weapons proliferation, among others. U.S. persons are prohibited from conducting business with anyone on the SDN list, and any assets they hold must be blocked and reported to OFAC.
The 50% rule states that any entity owned 50% or more in aggregate by one or more SDN-designated persons is automatically blocked, even if the entity itself is not on the SDN list. Good screening software supports this by letting you enrol beneficial owners alongside the entity and screening the full ownership set on every list update. Pure name screening alone cannot catch 50% rule exposure, you need ownership data in the screening record.
A false positive is a match where the name aligns but secondary identifiers (DOB, country, government ID) rule out the designated party. The important thing is documentation: record which identifiers cleared the match, who made the decision, and when. Regulators routinely inspect cleared alerts during examinations, and ungrounded dismissals count as a finding. SanctScan captures per-decision logs automatically so analysts only need to enter their reasoning.
SanctScan is SaaS. For most compliance programs that is the right default: OFAC publishes list updates multiple times per week, and staying current is an ongoing responsibility that SaaS handles transparently. On-premise deployments typically make sense only for specific regulated industries with data residency requirements that rule out cloud hosting. If you have hard data-residency constraints, contact us via the Enterprise plan to discuss options.
OFAC updates the SDN list multiple times per week, occasionally multiple times per day during major sanctions events. Updates include new designations, removals, and amendments (new aliases, updated DOBs, added government IDs). Any screening programme that runs on a monthly batch leaves a multi-week gap where a newly designated counterparty could still transact.
The SDN list is a single list maintained by OFAC. The U.S. government's Consolidated Screening List (CSL) is broader: it combines all OFAC lists with the Commerce Department's Entity List, the State Department's Debarred List, and several others. For importers, exporters and freight forwarders, the CSL is the practical default screening target rather than the SDN list alone.
Often, yes. Any business whose transactions touch the U.S. financial system (USD wires through correspondent banks), use U.S.-origin goods or software above the de minimis threshold, or involve U.S. persons as parties or counterparties has OFAC exposure. Most international fintechs, exporters and marketplaces fall within scope even if they are not U.S.-domiciled.
No credit card required. 25 ad-hoc screenings per month on the Free plan. Upgrade to Solo ($19/month) for continuous monitoring.
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