OFAC Polygon Compliance Guide Part 1
OFAC screening for payments that settle on Polygon, covering wallet checks before an agent pays on-chain.
TL;DR
TL;DR: Payments on Polygon can land in OFAC-listed wallets, and paying one is a strict liability violation. Screen the destination address before the transaction; clean wallets ALLOW and listed wallets BLOCK.
Why chain choice does not change the rule
Whether value settles on Polygon, Base, or another chain, OFAC sanctions follow the counterparty, not the network. The API screens against 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets and 19,218 SDN names across 16 jurisdictions, synced hourly, so a listed address is caught regardless of chain.
Fitting screening into the flow
The 4-Gate Agent Payment Protocol runs SCREEN, SCORE, STOP, STAMP. Before a Polygon transfer, run sanctions_check on the receiving address. A clean result ALLOWs the payment; a flagged result BLOCKs it and the agent stops. One HTTP call returns in under 100 ms.
Practical steps
- Screen the destination wallet before signing the Polygon transaction.
- STAMP clean payments for audit records.
- Use risk_score for addresses that need manual review.