Sanctions Screening

BlockchainAnalysis.io provides automated sanctions screening against all major international sanctions lists. Every wallet screening and transaction monitoring alert automatically includes a sanctions check, ensuring your organization meets its regulatory obligations.

Sanctions lists are updated within 1 hour of publication by the issuing authority. List update timestamps are displayed in every screening result.

Supported Sanctions Lists

| List | Issuing Authority | Update Frequency | |---|---|---| | OFAC SDN | U.S. Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control | Real-time (within 1 hour) | | OFAC Non-SDN | U.S. Treasury (sectoral, CAPTA, NS-MBS lists) | Real-time (within 1 hour) | | EU Consolidated List | European Commission | Daily | | UN Security Council | United Nations | Daily | | SECO | Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs | Daily | | HMT (UK) | His Majesty's Treasury | Daily | | DFAT (Australia) | Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade | Daily | | Canada SEMA | Canadian sanctions regulations | Daily | | Interpol Red Notices | International arrest warrants | Daily | | Europol Most Wanted | EU-wide fugitive list | Daily | | FBI Most Wanted | US federal fugitives | Daily | | PEP Database | Politically Exposed Persons worldwide | Weekly | | OpenSanctions | Aggregated global sanctions data | Daily | | SAM.gov | US government debarment list | Daily | | HHS OIG | US healthcare exclusions | Daily |

OFAC 50% Rule

The platform applies the OFAC 50% Rule — entities that are 50% or more owned by a sanctioned person are themselves treated as sanctioned, even if not explicitly listed on the SDN. BlockchainAnalysis.io includes 5,820 derived entities from OFAC's SDN Advanced XML data subject to this rule.

The 50% Rule means that even if a company is not directly on the SDN list, it is treated as blocked if one or more sanctioned persons own, directly or indirectly, 50% or more of the entity. This is automatically applied in all screening results.

How Screening Works

Address-Level Screening

Every blockchain address screened on the platform is checked against sanctioned addresses published on the lists above. The platform maintains a continuously updated database of sanctioned blockchain addresses, including:

  • Addresses explicitly named in sanctions designations
  • Addresses identified through cluster analysis as belonging to sanctioned entities
  • Addresses associated with sanctioned individuals or organizations through OSINT

Entity-Level Screening

When an address is identified as belonging to a known entity, the entity name is also screened against sanctions lists. This catches cases where an entity is sanctioned but its specific blockchain addresses have not yet been published.

Match Types

| Match Type | Description | |---|---| | Exact Match | The address appears directly on a sanctions list. | | Cluster Match | The address belongs to the same cluster as a sanctioned address (UTXO chains). | | Entity Match | The address belongs to an entity that appears on a sanctions list by name. | | Associated Match | The address has significant direct interactions with a sanctioned address. |

Sanctions Alerts

When a sanctions match is detected, the platform:

  1. Flags the screening result with a prominent sanctions alert banner.
  2. Assigns a risk score of 100 (maximum risk) for exact and cluster matches.
  3. Sends a real-time notification via email, webhook, or Telegram (depending on your alert configuration).
  4. Logs the event in the audit trail with full details for regulatory reporting.

An exact sanctions match should be treated as a blocking event. Your organization should not process transactions involving sanctioned addresses. Consult your compliance team and legal counsel immediately.

Compliance Obligations

Most regulated entities are required to screen against sanctions lists as part of their AML/CFT obligations. Key regulatory frameworks that mandate sanctions screening include:

  • 5AMLD / 6AMLD (EU Anti-Money Laundering Directives)
  • Bank Secrecy Act / USA PATRIOT Act (United States)
  • AMLA (Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Act)
  • FATF Recommendations (global standard-setter)
  • FinMA guidelines (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority)

Screening via API

Sanctions screening is included in every API screening call. The response includes a dedicated sanctions object:

{
  "sanctions": {
    "is_sanctioned": false,
    "matches": [],
    "lists_checked": ["OFAC_SDN", "EU_CONSOLIDATED", "UN_SC", "SECO", "HMT", "DFAT"],
    "last_updated": "2026-03-08T06:00:00Z"
  }
}

See the API documentation for full response schema details.

Best Practices

  • Screen before transacting — Always screen counterparty addresses before processing deposits or withdrawals.
  • Enable Transaction Monitoring — Use Transaction Monitoring for ongoing surveillance of known addresses.
  • Document everything — Maintain records of all sanctions screening results for regulatory audits. The platform's Audit Trail handles this automatically.
  • Review fuzzy matches — Associated and entity matches require manual review by a compliance officer to determine whether they constitute a true positive.
BlockchainAnalysis.io — Digital Asset Compliance Platform