What is the OFAC SDN List? Records, aliases, and screening

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What SDN means

SDN stands for Specially Designated Nationals. The full list name is the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. OFAC publishes it through the Sanctions List Service. It includes listed people and organizations, with other record types such as vessels and aircraft.

An SDN entry is an authority record, not a customer record. Several entries, names, or aliases may relate to the same real-world identity. A provider’s record count therefore does not tell you how many unique people or companies it covers.

Read the entry before interpreting the alert

Begin with the source identifier, entity type, primary name, aliases, program information, and any published identifiers. Source data can contain multiple addresses, approximate dates, or missing facts. Preserve those differences rather than flattening the entry into one confident-looking profile.

The list may give enough detail to distinguish a candidate, or it may leave important questions open. A vessel’s identifier and an organization’s registration number require different comparisons. Do not apply a person-only date-of-birth checklist to every result.

Aliases improve discovery, not certainty

An alias can help a screening system find a listed party under another name. It does not prove that every person using that name is the listed party. OFAC distinguishes weak aliases in its alias guidance; the context and specificity of a name matter.

A reviewer should be able to see whether the candidate was found through a primary name, a published alias, or a derived search form. A display that hides that distinction makes a common-name alert harder to investigate. See the name-matching guide for practical examples.

Synthetic example: one name, two identities

This invented example is not about an actual designated party. A customer called Rowan Vale has a verified full birth date. A fictional SDN-like candidate has the same name and a different year of birth. The reviewer checks whether the source date is precise, approximate, one of several alternatives, or a transcription error before treating it as a conflict.

The final note should explain the comparable facts and their provenance. “Different date” without the source precision and document reference is not enough for someone else to reconstruct the decision.

A clean direct-list search does not resolve ownership

OFAC’s 50 Percent Rule guidance explains that entities owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, in the aggregate by one or more blocked persons are treated as blocked even when not separately listed. Ownership analysis needs reliable relationship evidence, not just another spelling of the company name.

SanctionsKit does not discover a complete ownership graph merely by screening an organization. Record ownership diligence and direct-list screening as related but distinct controls.

Choose SDN coverage deliberately

The supported SanctionsKit source identifier is `ofac-sdn`. Check current availability through source documentation and preserve the version used. Adding Non-SDN coverage is a separate selection with different interpretation requirements.

For engineering work, start with the OFAC API guide and a synthetic sandbox request. For analyst work, use the false-positive review checklist. Neither workflow should convert a similarity score into a legal decision.