OFAC Syria Sanctions Screening

Checking counterparties against the broad Syria program, which imposes wide prohibitions with narrow humanitarian exceptions.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Syria sanctions are comprehensive, with broad prohibitions and limited humanitarian exceptions. The Syrian government and many entities are designated.

The Comprehensive Program

OFAC's Syria program is broad. It prohibits most transactions involving the Syrian government and designates many entities and individuals tied to it. Exceptions exist for certain humanitarian activity, but they are narrow and must be applied carefully rather than assumed.

Why Exceptions Do Not Mean Auto-Allow

The existence of a humanitarian exception does not make a counterparty automatically clear. An agent that sees a Syria-linked party and assumes the exception applies is guessing. Under OFAC strict liability, intent is not required, so an incorrect guess still creates exposure.

Agent Payment Relevance

An AI agent paying a counterparty should screen against the SDN List and block any Syria-linked match unless an exception is documented and verified. sanctionsai.dev checks 19,218 SDN names and 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets in under 100 ms, returning clean equals ALLOW and flagged equals BLOCK, and dispute_open lets a flagged party challenge the result.

Practical Guidance

• Block Syria-linked matches by default, exceptions documented.
• Verify any claimed humanitarian exception before paying.
• Screen both names and wallet addresses.