Why seven lists?
The short answer is that sanctions regimes are not synchronized. The US, UK, EU, UN, Canada, and Australia each designate individuals and entities independently. Someone added to the EU list today may not appear on OFAC for weeks — if ever. Real cross-border compliance means checking all of them.
The manual version of this problem
Seven separate sources. Seven different file formats or APIs. Seven update schedules. Seven schemas that change without warning. Here's what the raw sources look like:
- OFAC SDN: treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdn.xml — 25MB XML, continuous updates
- UK OFSI: CSV at publishing.service.gov.uk — alias-heavy, requires grouping logic
- UN SC: scsanctions.un.org — XML, HEAD check broken, full fetch required
- US CSL: trade.gov consolidated JSON — 11 sub-lists merged
- EU FSF: XML from European Commission — different schema entirely
- Canada SEMA: XML from Global Affairs Canada
- Australia DFAT: Geo-blocked official URL — requires OpenSanctions mirror
What one API call does
POST /screen/all
{ "name": "Alexei Navalny Foundation", "threshold": 80 }
Returns consolidated results from all seven databases — matched entries, scores, source attribution, entity types — in a single JSON response. 64,000+ entries screened in under 300ms.
Coverage
- OFAC SDN — US Treasury — ~18,700 entries
- UK OFSI — HM Treasury — ~19,700 name variants
- UN Security Council — UN SC (Res. 1267/2253) — ~1,000 entries
- US CSL — Commerce / State / Treasury — ~25,400 entries
- EU FSF — European Commission — ~5,800 entries
- Canada SEMA — Global Affairs Canada — ~5,200 entries
- Australia DFAT — DFAT (via OpenSanctions mirror) — ~3,700 entries
Pricing
Free: 100 requests/month. Pro: $29/month for 5,000 requests. No contract, cancel anytime.