OFAC DPRK sanctions program

DPRK is one of the program codes OFAC attaches to entries on the Specially Designated Nationals list. As of 2026-07-24 it appears on 69 SDN entries. Designations under this program are made under Executive Order 13551 (North Korea), Executive Order 14014 and Executive Order 13687 (North Korea).

What the DPRK code means on an SDN entry

OFAC does not maintain one list per sanctions program. It maintains one SDN list, and tags each entry with the program or programs it was designated under. An entry can carry several: of the 69 entries tagged DPRK, 5 also carry at least one other program code.

The legal authorities OFAC records against these designations are:

• Executive Order 13551 (North Korea)
• Executive Order 14014
• Executive Order 13687 (North Korea)

That matters for screening: if you filter an SDN extract to a single program code you will silently drop entries that were designated under a different code but are blocked all the same. Screen the whole list, then use the program code to explain a hit — not to decide which entries to load.

DPRK designations by type

When DPRK designations were made

The earliest entry still carrying this code was published 2010-08-30; the most recent was 2025-11-04. Designations per year, most recent first:

Countries recorded against DPRK entries

Counted from the address, nationality and citizenship fields on each entry. An entry can record more than one country, and many record none, so these do not sum to the entry count:

Most recent DPRK designations

Names are reproduced exactly as OFAC publishes them. OFAC also publishes alternate identities (a.k.a. spellings and transliterations) for many entries, and a screening system that matches only the primary name will miss them.

Screen this programmatically

The same data behind this page is available as a single unauthenticated GET. It checks a counterparty name against all SDN primary names and alternate identities, and returns a match list rather than a yes/no so you can log what matched and why:

curl "https://sanctionsai.dev/sanctions?name=HO,%20Yong%20Chol"

The free tier allows 5 checks per day with no signup, which is enough to wire the call up and see the response shape. Production limits and the audit log are on the paid tiers; the API reference covers batch screening and the degraded flag you should alert on.