If you onboard customers, pay suppliers abroad or ship goods across borders, you are expected to check names against the sanctions lists. Commercial screening suites start at hundreds of dollars a month. For a small team with a few hundred or a few thousand names, that is a lot to pay for a lookup.
This guide screens a whole list against seven official lists in one run, for $3 per 1,000 names, with a verdict per name you can hand to whoever signs off.
Which lists
Read fresh from each publisher on every run:
- US OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list and the consolidated non-SDN list
- UN Security Council consolidated list
- EU consolidated financial sanctions list
- UK sanctions list
- Canada's consolidated autonomous sanctions list
- Switzerland's SECO list
About 46,000 entries in all.
What you get
One row per name you screened:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Verdict | match, possible-match or no-match |
| Top score | 100 |
| Best matches | the listed name or alias that matched, which list, the sanctions programme |
| Details | countries, birth dates, passport or registration numbers where the list gives them |
| Checks | birthYear: consistent, country: different when you supply them |
| Link | the entry on the publisher's site |
Matching that copes with real names
Names arrive in every spelling. Владимир Путин, PUTIN, Vladimir and V. Putin are found as the same person; Mohammed and Muhammad match; company forms such as Ltd, LLC or GmbH are ignored; and common words like Trading or Bank count for less, so Bank alone does not match every listed bank. Give a date of birth or a country and a different one lowers the score and is flagged, so you review fewer false alarms.
Step 1: open the tool
Go to Sanctions Screener and click Try for free. No Apify account? Create one free; no card needed. The free plan screens up to 100 names per run.
Step 2: paste your names
One per line in Names, or switch to JSON and send your own references:
{
"names": ["Rosneft", "Acme Trading LLC"],
"subjects": [
{ "name": "Jane Example", "id": "customer-17", "dateOfBirth": "1980", "country": "GB" }
],
"minScore": 85
}Step 3: run and export
Click Start. Each run loads all seven lists fresh, which takes about a minute, then screens your names in seconds; one run can screen thousands. Export the verdicts to Excel, CSV or Google Sheets.
Keep it current
- Rescreen weekly. Schedule the same input; there is a ready n8n workflow that writes each week's verdicts to a Google Sheet.
- Follow the lists themselves. Mode
changesreports new designations and removals since the last run. - Screen during onboarding. Standby mode keeps the lists in memory and answers each check in milliseconds.
A screening result is a lead for your compliance review, not a legal determination. Check every match against the publisher's entry before you act on it.