OFAC Licensing Division

The OFAC office that reviews and issues specific licenses authorizing otherwise-prohibited transactions. Applications take weeks to months to process.

TL;DR

TL;DR: The Licensing Division reviews applications for specific licenses that authorize transactions otherwise blocked by sanctions. Processing can take weeks to months, so it is not a fix for an urgent payment.

What the division does

Some transactions involving sanctioned parties or regions are prohibited outright, but OFAC can authorize them case by case. The Licensing Division is the office that reviews these requests and, when approved, issues a specific license describing exactly what is permitted, for whom, and for how long. A specific license is narrow: it authorizes only the activity it describes.

Why licenses take time

Applications are reviewed individually, and the volume and complexity of the request determine how long a decision takes. Weeks to months is a realistic range. That means a license cannot rescue a payment that needs to settle today, and organizations should plan around the delay rather than assuming approval.

How screening relates

A license applies to transactions that would otherwise be blocked. Screening is what tells you a transaction is in that category in the first place. If a counterparty flags, the next question is whether a license already covers the activity; if not, the transaction should not proceed, and an application is a separate, slower path.

Practical takeaway

Build for the common case where no license exists: screen, and on a flag, stop. A tool such as sanctionsai.dev returns ALLOW or BLOCK in under 100 ms, so an agent knows immediately whether it is in ordinary territory or in the space where licensing, and its delays, come into play.