How to check a Latin American contractor against the OFAC sanctions list, step by step

US persons generally may not deal with the people and companies on OFAC’s SDN List: their property is blocked, and a payment to them has to be blocked or rejected.[7] Checking a contractor takes a few minutes on OFAC’s free Sanctions List Search, which covers the SDN List and OFAC’s other sanctions lists in one lookup.[1]

Latin America is not a side case. Of the 19,484 entries on the SDN List last updated on October 28, 2026, 2,358 list an address in Latin America, and 1,228 list one in Mexico, the third-highest count of any country after Russia and Iran.[2] Screening sits next to the rest of the onboarding paperwork: a W-8BEN from an individual contractor, a W-8BEN-E from a company and, in Mexico, an RFC check. This manual runs one search for a company that is on the list, Venezuela’s state oil company, and one for a name that is not.

Go to sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov. It is free, and there is no account or sign-in. One lookup covers the SDN List and the other lists OFAC administers, such as the Foreign Sanctions Evaders List and the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List.[1] The tool uses approximate string matching, so it also returns names close to what you type, and a slider sets how close a result must be. OFAC does not recommend any particular setting, and it says the tool is not a substitute for due diligence.[1]

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Type the full legal name as it appears on the contractor’s ID. Latin American names often carry two surnames, so search the full name first and then the given name with each surname. If the contractor invoices through a company, search its legal name and its trade name as well. Leave Type, Program, Country and List on All: narrowing them can hide a record you did not expect. The Minimum Name Score starts at 100, the strictest setting; keep it there for the first search and press Search.[1] The example searches PETROLEOS DE VENEZUELA, a company on the SDN List.

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Each row is a record on a list, not a verdict. Name is the name or alias that matched, Type says whether the record is an individual, an entity, a vessel or an aircraft, Program(s) gives the sanctions program codes, List says which OFAC list holds the record, and Score is how closely the name matched your search.[1] Here three rows score 100: the same company under its name and two of its aliases, on the SDN List under VENEZUELA-EO13850, the code for Executive Order 13850.[8]

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Click the name to open the full record: type, list and program, identification numbers, every alias and every address.[1] OFAC’s guidance is to compare the whole entry, including aliases, identifiers and addresses, with the information you hold. If very few details match, you may reasonably treat the hit as invalid; if several match, follow your compliance procedure and check whether a general or specific license or an exemption applies.[7] OFAC does not confirm potential matches or false positives for you. For a contractor, compare the record with the ID and tax number you collected at onboarding. This record lists a Venezuelan RIF tax number, the alias PDVSA and two addresses in Caracas.[1]

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Names get misspelled in contracts, invoices and bank details, so search again with a lower minimum score. With the name typed wrongly as PETROLEOS DE VENESUELA and the score at 85, the tool still found the three rows, now scoring 98, and added four unrelated names scoring 85 to 87.[1] That is what a false positive looks like: a similar name with nothing else in common. The slider runs from 50 to 100, and OFAC does not recommend a setting.[1]

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When nothing matches, the results table says so. Print the page or save it as a PDF with the printer icon, or export the results to Excel, and file it with the contract: the name searched, the score used, the date, and the list dates shown at the bottom of the page.[1] OFAC’s recordkeeping rule requires records of transactions subject to its regulations to be kept for at least 10 years, so keep the screening evidence at least as long.[3] The SDN List in this search was last updated on October 28, 2026; screen again before each payment run, not only at onboarding.[1]

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Civil liability for sanctions violations does not depend on knowing. OFAC can penalize a person subject to US jurisdiction even if it did not know or have reason to know that the transaction was prohibited.[9] Screening is how companies avoid that. OFAC’s compliance framework says a sanctions program should rest on at least five components: management commitment, risk assessment, internal controls, testing and auditing, and training.[10] It notes that many organizations screen their customers, supply chain, counterparties and transactions, and it lists screening tools that missed list updates or alternative spellings among the root causes of past violations.[10]

For a company hiring in Latin America, three moments cover most of the risk:

• At shortlist: the person, and their company if they invoice through one.
• At signature: the legal name on the contract and the holder of the bank account you will pay.
• Before each payment run: the lists change, so a clean result from onboarding goes stale.

Each result carries one or more program codes, and OFAC asks users to pay close attention to them because they indicate how a true hit should be treated.[1] The Program Code Key gives the legal basis of each code. These are the ones a hiring team in Latin America meets most often:[8]

In February 2025 the State Department designated eight groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, among them Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Cartel del Golfo, Cartel del Noreste and Tren de Aragua.[11] On the October 28, 2026 list, 588 of the 1,228 entries with an address in Mexico carry the SDNTK code, 573 carry ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059 and 296 carry SDGT; one entry can carry several codes.[2]

Two programs reach beyond the names on the list, so the contractor’s country and nationality matter as much as the search result.

Cuba. The Cuban Assets Control Regulations prohibit, unless authorized, payments and other transactions in which Cuba or a Cuban national has any interest, direct or indirect.[12] A Cuban national who has taken up permanent residence outside Cuba is licensed as an unblocked national, provided you obtain documentation and the person is not a prohibited official of the Government of Cuba or a prohibited member of the Cuban Communist Party. The documentation can be a passport, national ID or permanent resident card from the third country or, where those are unavailable, evidence of two years of uninterrupted residence in a single country outside Cuba.[13] A contractor who lives in Cuba is a different case. The program also got stricter in 2026: Executive Order 14404 of May 1, 2026 and the Cuba Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR part 516), effective September 30, 2026, add sanctions risk for foreign persons, and the amended regulations no longer let banks keep accounts for Cuban independent private sector entrepreneurs.[14]

Venezuela. Executive Order 13884 blocks the Government of Venezuela, which includes agencies and instrumentalities such as the Central Bank of Venezuela and PdVSA and the entities they own or control, whether or not those entities appear on the SDN List. OFAC’s guidance is that US persons are not prohibited from transactions involving the country or people of Venezuela, as long as no blocked person or prohibited conduct is involved.[15] Screen the name, and ask whether the contractor works for a state entity.

The tool matches names against lists. Three things sit outside it:

• Companies owned by sanctioned people. Any entity owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, by one or more blocked persons is itself blocked, whether or not it is on the list.[16] If a contractor invoices through a company, ask who owns it and screen the owners too.
• Country rules. A name can come back clean and the payment can still be prohibited, as with a contractor located in Cuba.[12]
• A confirmation. OFAC does not confirm potential matches or false positives; the decision and the record are yours.[7]

OFAC’s steps for a likely match: follow your compliance procedure and check whether a general or specific license or an exemption applies. If none does, block the property when OFAC requires it, as it does for SDN List parties, or reject the transaction when it is prohibited but there is nothing to block. Blocked property and rejected transactions are reported to OFAC within 10 business days, and the records of the investigation are kept.[7]

Getting it wrong is expensive. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a civil penalty can reach the greater of a fixed amount or twice the value of the transaction.[4] In January 2025 the fixed amount was set at $377,700 per violation, with $111,308 under the Trading with the Enemy Act and $1,876,699 under the Kingpin Act.[5] The Trading with the Enemy Act is one of the laws the Cuban Assets Control Regulations are issued under.[12] The Office of Management and Budget cancelled the 2026 inflation adjustment, so agencies keep the 2025 levels.[6] In 2026, through October 27, OFAC announced 10 penalties and settlements totaling $297,513,285.[17]