Sanctions Lists

OFAC maintains several distinct sanctions lists, each imposing a different set of restrictions on US persons.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Sanctions lists are the authoritative rosters of restricted parties published by OFAC. The SDN List is the primary blocking list, and screening against it is the core of a sanctions compliance program.

What OFAC publishes

OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the US Treasury, maintains multiple lists. The SDN List, the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, is the main blocking list. Other lists include the SSI List (Sectoral Sanctions Identifications), the FSE List (Foreign Sanctions Evaders), the NS-PLC List (Non-SDN Palestinian Legislative Council), and the CAPTA List for foreign financial institutions subject to correspondent account restrictions. OFAC updates these lists regularly, and the SDN List is published in machine readable form as sdn.csv so that screening tools can consume it directly.

Why the list matters

Not every list carries the same obligation. A match on the SDN List generally requires blocking property and rejecting the transaction. The SSI List instead imposes narrower restrictions on specific debt and equity. Knowing which list produced a match determines what action is required, so screening tools must distinguish list types rather than returning a single binary result. Because designations are added and removed over time, a screening program must sync against the current list rather than a fixed snapshot.

Sanctions lists for agent payments

For AI agents that pay counterparties, the SDN List is the list that matters most. sanctionsai.dev screens 19,218 SDN names plus 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets across 16 jurisdictions, synced hourly. A clean result returns ALLOW, and a flagged result returns BLOCK, so the agent can act before funds move.