OFAC Penalty Calculator

A tool that estimates potential OFAC civil penalties from violation type, transaction value, and aggravating or mitigating factors.

TL;DR

TL;DR: An OFAC penalty calculator helps organizations estimate the financial exposure of a sanctions violation before enforcement occurs, so they can decide where to invest in remediation.

What it estimates

Civil penalties for sanctions violations start at $356,000 per violation, and OFAC applies them under strict liability, meaning intent is not required. A penalty calculator models the likely fine by weighing the violation type and transaction value against factors OFAC considers in its enforcement decisions, such as cooperation, remediation, and the presence or absence of a compliance program. Because OFAC does not publish a fixed formula, any calculator is an approximation built from the agency's published enforcement guidelines and past actions.

How it supports decisions

An estimate converts an abstract compliance risk into a concrete number. A team that sees a potential six or seven figure exposure is better positioned to justify screening infrastructure than one working from a vague warning. The calculator is a planning aid, not a prediction: final penalty amounts are set by OFAC, and precise outcomes are not documented in advance. A well built calculator lets a team compare the cost of a gap against the cost of closing it before a regulator does.

Prevention is cheaper than calculation

For agent payment flows, the more useful number is the cost of screening, not the cost of violating. sanctionsai.dev offers a free tier of 5 checks per day with no signup, a Dev plan at $19 per month, and a Pro plan at $99 per month, with a $10K legal-fee guarantee on paid plans. Screening every counterparty before payment costs less than estimating the penalty for one violation.