Denied Party Screening
Check a buyer, consignee or supplier against 13 US government lists in one search — OFAC SDN, the BIS Entity List, the Denied Persons List and more. Catches typos and other spellings. Free, no signup.
How well it matches — measured, not claimed
Measured 2026-10-03 on names the matcher had never been tuned on. A result is shown when names are at least 74% similar.
The 13 lists
- SDNSpecially Designated Nationals — Treasury (OFAC)
- ELEntity List — Commerce (BIS)
- DPLDenied Persons List — Commerce (BIS)
- DTCITAR Debarred — State
- SSISectoral Sanctions Identifications — Treasury
- UVLUnverified List — Commerce (BIS)
- ISNNonproliferation Sanctions — State
- MEUMilitary End User List — Commerce (BIS)
- CMICNon-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex — Treasury
- NS-MBSNon-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions — Treasury
- FSEForeign Sanctions Evaders — Treasury
- PLCPalestinian Legislative Council — Treasury
- CAPCorrespondent Account or Payable-Through Account Sanctions — Treasury
Source: the US Consolidated Screening List published by the International Trade Administration (trade.gov), fetched every six hours.
Questions
What is denied party screening?
Checking the people and companies in a deal — buyer, consignee, end user, agent — against government lists of parties you may not deal with, or may deal with only under a licence. In the US the main lists are OFAC’s SDN list and the Commerce Department’s Entity List and Denied Persons List.
Which lists does this search?
The US Consolidated Screening List (CSL), which the International Trade Administration publishes as one file: 13 lists from the Departments of Commerce, State and the Treasury, including OFAC SDN. We fetch it from trade.gov every six hours and show the fetch time on every result.
What should I do with a possible match?
Compare the details — address, country, other names — with the government listing linked on the result. A similar name alone is not a match. If it is the same party, stop and get advice before you ship, pay or sign: trade.gov says that if a party appears to match, “additional due diligence should be conducted before proceeding”.
Does it catch misspellings and other forms of a name?
Yes. Names are compared after removing punctuation and company forms (Co., Ltd., LLC, OOO …), one-letter typos count as close, and common spellings of the same name (Mohammed / Muhammad) meet. Tested on 1,324 variants of 500 listed names: 0.6% missed. On 852 company names not on the lists, 7.9% raised a possible match. Spellings from other alphabets are harder: of 194 second spellings the government lists, hidden and then searched, 34% were not found through the party’s other names — so search every name and spelling the party uses.
Does it cover companies owned by a listed party?
No. The lists name the listed parties themselves; they do not list every company those parties own. Treasury’s OFAC 50 percent rule, and the Commerce “Affiliates Rule” scheduled to apply again from November 10, 2026 unless extended, can reach companies 50% or more owned by listed parties — check the ownership of your counterparty separately.
What does Screening Pro add?
Searching one name is free. Screening Pro ($29 a month, cancel anytime) screens up to 1,000 names at once from a pasted list or a CSV, gives you a dated PDF record of every screen with the list version it was checked against, keeps those records, and re-screens up to 500 saved counterparties every day — you get an e-mail when a new possible match appears.
Is this legal advice or a compliance programme?
No. It is a search tool. It does not decide whether you need a licence and it is not a substitute for your own compliance process or for advice from an export-control lawyer.
More on the rules: Denied party screening — a guide for exporters.