This guide walks through how to perform a sanctions check and document your findings - whether you find a match or not. For the concepts behind screening (source types, matching, false positives and limitations), start with What Is Sanctions Screening?
Sanctions regulations differ by jurisdiction, but the common thread is that compliance is your responsibility:
Research institutions, exporters and international businesses, professional services firms, procurement and third-party risk teams, compliance and legal teams, and NGOs all use sanctions screening to assess people and organisations they work with. Even where not strictly required, screening and documenting your checks demonstrates good faith due diligence.
Think broadly about who is involved in your transactions and relationships:
The scope depends on your risk profile. Higher-risk transactions (cross-border, high-value, or involving sanctioned jurisdictions) warrant broader screening.
There is no single “sanctions list.” Multiple governments each maintain their own lists, and they do not always overlap.
| If you are… | Check these lists |
|---|---|
| US-based or dealing with US goods/dollars | OFAC SDN, OFAC Consolidated (Non-SDN), BIS Entity List, BIS Denied Persons |
| UK-based | UK OFSI Sanctions List |
| EU-based | EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions |
| Australia-based | DFAT Consolidated List |
| Canada-based | Canadian Consolidated Autonomous Sanctions |
| Dealing internationally | UN Security Council Consolidated List |
Most organisations with cross-border exposure should screen against multiple lists. A consolidated screening tool saves time by searching all relevant lists simultaneously.
For each party you are checking, gather:
Sanctions Checklist offers several ways to screen, depending on what you are working with:
Type a name into the search bar and all active sanctions, export-control and risk sources are searched in one query. Toggle PEP lists on or off depending on whether your requirements include Politically Exposed Persons screening. Start with broad matching to catch spelling variations and transliterations, and search known aliases separately.
If you have a list of parties to check, use the Multiple Search tab to add up to 100 names at once. Names are entered as chips across three categories - individuals, organisations and countries - and all are screened in a single batch. Each name costs one search token. Results are written to a checklist: matches are flagged for review and names with no list match are recorded as cleared entries, so you have a documented outcome for every party.
Upload a file or copy text directly and Sanctions Checklist will extract people, organisations and countries using in-browser machine learning. The document never leaves your device - extraction runs locally in your browser. You review and edit the extracted names before submitting them for screening. Extraction is free; only the screening step consumes search tokens (one per entity).
For organisations and institutions, AI Entity Discovery identifies connected people, organisations and countries by searching structured public registers and open-web sources, then uses AI to extract relationships from the cited source text. Every result includes a quoted passage and a link to the source page - connections are not created from model knowledge alone. You can then select any discovered entities and batch-screen them against sanctions lists.
Screen a single name, batch-screen a list, extract entities from documents, or discover connected parties with AI. Free search tokens available - no credit card required.
Search nowMost sanctions checks return no matches. This is normal - and documenting that outcome is just as important as documenting a match.
If you get no matches: This is the outcome for the majority of checks. A timestamped “no match” record demonstrates that screening was performed and nothing was found at that point in time. Add the result to your checklist so you have a permanent record.
If you get matches: Review each result carefully. Compare the listed entity’s details (nationality, entity type, designation source) against what you know about your counterparty. Not every match is a true match - common names generate false positives. Click into an entity profile to see official source data and related entities via Wikidata enrichment.
Whether you found matches or not, add the result to your Checklist Report. This is where you build a structured record of your due diligence.
Once your checklist is complete, export it as a timestamped PDF report. This creates a permanent, dated record of your screening - the kind of documentation regulators and auditors look for. The PDF includes every entity you checked (with match status and timestamps), every data source that was searched, and when each source was last updated.
Build a checklist of everyone you screened, export it as a dated PDF with full audit trail, and keep it on file. Your evidence that due diligence was done.
Start screeningSanctions lists change frequently - OFAC alone updates multiple times per week. A one-time check at the start of a relationship is generally not sufficient for ongoing dealings.
A consolidated screening list combines multiple government lists into a single searchable database. The US government provides an official Consolidated Screening List (CSL) at trade.gov, combining lists from the Departments of Commerce (BIS), Treasury (OFAC), and State. However, the CSL covers only US government lists - no EU, UK, UN, Australian, Canadian, or Swiss data - and provides no documentation, reporting, or audit trail.
Third-party tools like Sanctions Checklist go beyond the CSL by aggregating US lists alongside international sanctions data in a single search. This eliminates the risk of missing a designation on a list you didn’t think to check. Our comparison page breaks down how different providers approach this.