Automate UK sanctions screening for customer onboarding, payments and re-screening.
The official FCDO UK sanctions list, synced every 15 minutes to keep pace with new designations.
synced 7 min ago
The United Kingdom's single list of individuals, entities, and ships designated under UK sanctions. Published by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
If you confirm a match
FreezeFreeze the party's funds and economic resources. Do not make them available. Report to OFSI as soon as practicable.
Handle UK sanctions compliance without flooding your team with alerts.
Every UK result includes the exact list version checked, for your audit trail.
We never store the names or personal data you submit for screening.
No downtime when you hit plan limit. Extra usage is billed automatically.
Proprietary fuzzy matching for name variations, backed by IDs and attributes.
Every UK match comes with a score and a human-readable reason.
Average response of ~200 ms, ideal for onboarding and payment screening.
Screen counterparties and transactions wherever compliance decisions happen.
| Use case | Who to screen | When to screen |
|---|---|---|
| Customer onboarding (KYC) | New customers | Before the account is opened |
| Business onboarding (KYB) | Companies, vendors, and UBOs | Before the relationship starts |
| Loan origination | Borrowers | Before a loan is approved |
| Payment processing | Senders and beneficiaries | Before a payment is released |
| Trade and exports | Buyers, consignees, and end users | Before goods are shipped |
| Ongoing re-screening | Existing customers | After each list update |
For developers
Integrate UK screening into your application
with a single POST request.
Your own reference ID comes back with every result
Choose the lists each request screens against
One JSON response with scores, reasons, and list versionExample request
REST API
POST https://api.sanctionslookup.com/v1/screen Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY { "subject": { "subject_ref": "cust_1024", "type": "INDIVIDUAL", "name": "Maria Gonzalez" }, "options": { "sources": ["uk_sanc"] } }
All plans cover:
OFAC
EU
UN
UK
Canada
Switzerland
Australia1 screening = 1 subject screened. No lock-ins. Never cut off if you go over.
Book a quick call to talk through your setup, or get an API key and
make your first test calls with 100 free requests.
No annual lock-ins
Free tools and guides to improve your sanctions screening.
UK sanctions screening checks customers, counterparties and payments against the UK Sanctions List. UK sanctions are made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (SAMLA), with separate regulations for each regime. A designation can mean an asset freeze, a travel ban, trade restrictions or, for ships, detention and port-entry bans.
More than 30 regimes, each set out in its own regulations. The largest is the Russia regime, alongside country regimes such as Belarus, Iran, North Korea (DPRK), Syria and Myanmar, and thematic regimes for global human rights, global anti-corruption, cyber, chemical weapons, counter-terrorism and irregular migration. UN designations apply in the UK automatically and appear on the same list.
Anyone in the UK or its territorial waters, and every UK national and UK-incorporated company wherever they operate. Banks, payment and e-money firms, cryptoasset exchanges and custodian wallet providers, lenders, insurers and exporters all screen against the list.
OFSI, part of HM Treasury, can impose civil penalties of up to £1 million or 50% of the breach value, whichever is higher. Since the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, that liability is strict: OFSI doesn't need to show you knew or suspected the breach, and it can publicly name firms even without a fine. Serious breaches are also criminal offences, and trade sanctions are enforced separately by the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (OTSI).
Yes. Since Brexit the UK designates on its own, so its list includes people and entities that aren't on the EU or OFAC lists, and the other way round. Where the same party appears on several lists, the timing, spelling and identifiers often differ. With the sources option, one request screens the UK list together with OFAC, EU, UN, Canadian, Swiss and Australian lists, and each list in the response carries its own version details.
It closed on 28 January 2026. The UK Sanctions List, published by the FCDO, is now the only source for all UK designations. Entries are identified by a Unique ID, such as RUS0001, and the old OFSI Group ID is being retired. If your systems still pull the OFSI file or key records on Group ID, they're screening against a list that no longer updates.
No. The FCDO publishes the UK Sanctions List as XML, CSV, ODS, PDF and other files, with a search tool and email alerts, but no screening API. Building your own means parsing the file, tracking every change and matching names across aliases and non-Latin scripts. Our API does that and returns scored matches against the current list version.
Whenever the government adds, amends or removes a designation, with no fixed schedule. New designations take effect as soon as they're published, often in large batches under the Russia regime, and because OFSI penalties are strict liability, any lag in your data is your exposure. We check the list every 15 minutes, and every response states the list version it used. Amendments often add aliases or identifiers, so re-screen existing customers after each update.
Compare date of birth, nationality, passport or national ID numbers and address with the list entry, and read the statement of reasons published for the designation. If it's the same person, the asset freeze and any reporting duty apply from that point. If you still can't tell, don't release funds until you've resolved it, and contact OFSI if needed.
Relevant firms, including banks, payment and e-money institutions, cryptoasset firms, accountants, lawyers and trust and company service providers, must report to OFSI as soon as practicable when they know or have reasonable cause to suspect that someone is a designated person or has breached financial sanctions. The report covers what the suspicion is based on, the person's identifying details and any funds or economic resources you've frozen.
Yes. It reaches entities a designated person owns or controls, directly or indirectly: holding more than 50% of the shares or voting rights, having the right to appoint or remove most of the board, or being reasonably expected to direct the entity's affairs. Unlike the EU and OFAC, the UK doesn't add up separate designated persons' holdings unless they act together. Screen beneficial owners (UBOs), since an unlisted subsidiary won't match on its own.
Many UK-listed names come from Russian, Belarusian, Arabic and other non-Latin scripts and are spelled several ways. The UK list gives aliases and, for many entries, the name in its original script. The API matches against the primary name and every alias, and each match comes with a score and the reasons behind it. Add date of birth or nationality to separate true matches from false positives.
Screen them as vessels, not companies. The UK designates ships under its shipping sanctions, many of them tankers in Russia's shadow fleet, and lists each one with its IMO number. Ships are often renamed and reflagged, so the API screens vessels as their own subject type, matched by name and IMO number. Screen the owner and manager too, since links to designated companies won't show in the vessel record.
We use the names and details you submit only to run the check and never store them, in line with UK GDPR's data minimisation principle. We log only request metadata, such as when a check ran and how long it took. Each response returns your own subject_ref, so you can link results to your records without sending more than the check needs.
Average response time is about 200 ms, fast enough to screen during onboarding or before a payment is released. The batch endpoint screens up to 50 subjects per request, which suits re-screening your customer base after a list update. One screening is one subject, new accounts get 100 free screenings, and paid plans start at $149 a month.
SanctionsLookup
