OpenSanctions vs OFSI: which should I use?
Use both; they answer different questions.
OFSI publishes the UK's authoritative consolidated sanctions list. If a person or entity is on the OFSI list, transacting with them is illegal under UK sanctions law. The list is small (around 3,000-5,000 entries), maintained directly by HM Treasury, refreshed daily, and the source-of-truth for UK enforcement. For sanctions compliance under MLR-2017, screening against OFSI is non-negotiable.
OpenSanctions is an aggregated catalogue with 200+ source datasets covering: sanctions lists from 30+ jurisdictions (UK OFSI, US OFAC, EU, UN, plus Switzerland SECO, Canada OSFI, Australia DFAT, and many more), the FATF politically-exposed-persons (PEPs) catalogue with around 2 million entries, an adverse-media collection sourced from court records plus regulator publications plus news, and known-criminal entity lists. OpenSanctions sources are CC-BY-NC for development; the commercial Match API is licensed at €0.10 per query.
Which to use:
- For UK sanctions compliance: OFSI is mandatory. Pair with UN + EU lists for cross-jurisdiction coverage. - For PEP screening under MLR-2017 EDD: OpenSanctions PEP catalogue is the de-facto standard. The OFSI list does not cover PEPs. - For adverse-media checks (LSAG-2025 expectation): OpenSanctions adverse-media collection is the easiest single source. - For multi-jurisdiction screening (US OFAC, EU, etc): OpenSanctions covers all of them in one query.
Certaby's check runs all of these in one transaction: OFSI + UN + EU consolidated lists from the authoritative sources, plus the OpenSanctions PEP and adverse-media catalogues. Each match carries its source provenance on the cert PDF.
Source: OpenSanctions
Last updated 2026-05-09.