How Do I Check a Person or Company Against the OFAC SDN List? A Step-by-Step Guide

The Short Version

Gather identifying details on the person or company, run the name through a tool that checks the SDN list and related sanctions lists, review any potential match against the details you gathered, document what you did, and act immediately if it is real. If you just want to run the check right now, the free search at ofacscreen.com/screen covers all 8 major sanctions lists and returns full results with no signup.

Step 1: Gather the Right Information First

A bare name is enough to run a search, but not enough to resolve a hit one way or the other. Pull together what you have on file before you search:

• Individuals: full legal name as it appears on their ID, any known aliases or alternate spellings, date of birth, country of citizenship and residence, and a government ID number if you have one.
• Companies: the full registered legal name (not just a DBA), any prior or alternate names, country and state or province of incorporation, and a registration or tax ID number if available.

You do not need all of this to run the search, but you need most of it to clear or confirm a potential match in step 4. Collecting it upfront saves an awkward follow-up call later.

Step 2: Run the Search

OFAC's own Sanctions List Search on the Treasury website is free but only covers the lists OFAC maintains. It will not catch a hit on the UN, EU, UK, Canadian, or Swiss lists, or the BIS Denied Persons list. A dedicated screening tool checks all of those in one pass, which matters if your business has any international exposure at all.

Enter the full legal name. Do not abbreviate first names, drop middle names, or search only a company's DBA if you have the registered name; sanctions entries are built from formal source documents and tend to use full legal names.

Use fuzzy matching, not exact-string search. Sanctioned names get transliterated from Arabic, Russian, Chinese, and other scripts in more than one way, and people show up under nicknames or minor spelling variants that exact matching would miss. See how fuzzy matching works in sanctions screening for the mechanics. On sensitivity: keep the match threshold wide enough to catch spelling and transliteration variation, then use the review step below, not a tighter threshold, to filter out noise. Narrowing the threshold just to shorten the results list is how real matches get missed.

Step 3: Read the Results

A screening result is not a yes-or-no answer. Each potential match carries several pieces of information, and you need all of them together:

• Match score. How closely the searched name matches the list entry's name or an alias. Roughly 80% and above usually means the names are nearly or exactly identical; lower scores mean the tool found something similar, and the burden is on you to check supporting details before treating it as more than a lead.
• List source. The SDN list is OFAC's primary and most severe list: assets are blocked and virtually all transactions are prohibited. The Non-SDN Consolidated list covers narrower restrictions, like the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications list, and a hit on a non-OFAC list (UN, EU, UK, Canada, Switzerland) carries its own separate rules. Either way, a hit needs investigation, but the compliance response differs by source list.
• Program tags. Short codes like SDGT (Specially Designated Global Terrorist), UKRAINE-EO13662, IRAN, or SDNTK (Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker Kingpin) tied to each entry, telling you which sanctions program it falls under.
• Entry type, aliases, addresses, and ID numbers. The raw material you compare against what you gathered in step 1.

Step 4: Clear or Confirm the Match

Most hits, especially on common names, are false positives. Compare the list entry against your person or company on every available data point, not just the name: date of birth, address or country, identification numbers, and whether your customer's name matches a listed alias rather than the primary name. A name match with nothing else lining up is usually a false positive, safe to clear once documented. If DOB, address, or an ID number also line up, treat it as a likely true match and move to the last section below. For the full decision process and edge cases, see how to handle an OFAC match.

Step 5: Document the Check

A check that only lives in your memory is not worth much to an auditor later. For every screening, record: the name and identifying details searched, the date and time, which lists were checked and their version or last-updated date, the result, your determination on any potential match (and why), and who reviewed it. This is exactly what examiners ask for during an OFAC compliance review. Doing it by hand every time is tedious, which is why the one-time $9.99 OFACScreen report packages a single search into an audit-ready PDF automatically: name searched, lists and version dates, full results, timestamp, ready to hand to an examiner or drop into a customer file.

Individuals vs. Companies, and Vessels and Aircraft

The search itself works the same way for a person or a company; the review step differs. For individuals, DOB and a passport or national ID number are your best disambiguating evidence. For companies, jurisdiction of incorporation and a registration or tax ID matter more, and you should also check whether the company is 50% or more owned by a separately sanctioned party, since OFAC's ownership rules can make an otherwise unlisted company off-limits.

Two entry types are easy to overlook: vessels and aircraft. Ships and planes can be listed as blocked property in their own right, independent of current ownership, often tied to sanctions evasion. If your business touches shipping, freight, marine insurance, or aviation leasing, screen the vessel's IMO number or the aircraft's tail number directly, in addition to owner and operator names, since a name-only search will miss these entries.

Why One Clean Search Is Not the End

A clear result only tells you the person or company was not on the lists you checked as of that moment. OFAC adds designations without advance notice, and lists update frequently. For a genuine one-time transaction, a single check may be enough. For an ongoing relationship, customer, vendor, or tenant, it is not; you need to rescreen periodically, ideally every time the lists update. See batch screening best practices for rescreening a customer base at volume.

If It Is a True Match: Act Now

If step 4 points to a genuine match, do not wait for a second opinion:

1. Freeze it. Do not process the transaction, disburse funds, open the account, or ship the goods. Block any assets you hold for the party.
2. Do not tip off the customer. You cannot tell them why you are declining or freezing the transaction; tipping off a sanctioned party is itself a violation. A neutral line like "we are unable to process this request" is typically fine, but check with legal counsel if unsure.
3. Escalate internally. Loop in your compliance officer and legal counsel immediately.
4. Report to OFAC. Blocking and reject reports are due within 10 business days of the action, per 31 C.F.R. §§ 501.603 and 501.604.

Full detail on each step, and what to document afterward, is in how to handle an OFAC match.

Bottom Line

The score and the list source tell you more than the fact of a hit does. A name match with no supporting identifiers is almost always a false positive; a match that also lines up on DOB or an ID number is not. Clear the first once you have documented it, freeze the second, and rescreen anyone you keep doing business with, because a clean result only holds until the next list update.