The EU consolidated sanctions list explained
The EU’s consolidated financial sanctions list is the European counterpart to OFAC’s SDN. If you operate in the EU — or serve EU customers — you need to screen against it, and it does not always overlap with the U.S. list.
What it is
The Consolidated list of persons, groups and entities subject to EU financial sanctions is published by the European Commission (via the FISMA service). It aggregates the asset-freeze and restricted-party designations that flow from EU regulations into a single machine-readable file, so you don’t have to track each individual regulation separately.
How it differs from OFAC SDN
- Different legal basis. EU designations come from EU Council regulations, not U.S. executive orders — so the two lists overlap heavily but never perfectly.
- Different coverage. A party can be on one list and not the other. Screening only OFAC leaves EU-specific designations unchecked, and vice-versa.
- Different data shape. The EU file uses its own XML schema with a nameAlias structure (whole name plus first/middle/last), subjectType (person vs enterprise), birthdates and citizenships.
Because of the coverage gap, serious screening checks both lists. Our API queries OFAC SDN and the EU consolidated list in the same call, so a single request covers both jurisdictions.
Who must comply
EU financial sanctions bind all persons and entities within the EU, EU nationals wherever they are, and any business incorporated in an EU member state. In practice that pulls in EU banks, fintechs, crypto platforms, insurers and many of their service providers. With the incoming EU AML framework, expectations around systematic, documented screening are only tightening.
Screening against it in code
The raw file is free to download, but parsing its XML, reconciling aliases, refreshing it daily and matching names without drowning in false positives is real work. The Sanctions Screening API handles all of it and returns audit-ready evidence for each hit. See the OFAC SDN guide and the developer guide.
Try the free checker
Screens against OFAC SDN + the EU consolidated list at once.
Screening signals and evidence for your own review; not legal advice or a compliance determination. Confirm potential matches through your compliance process.