UK Sanctions List

In this blog post, we’ll be talking about the UK Sanctions List. This list is maintained by the government under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2018 (SAMLA 2018). The list is there to warn you as a company professional against sanctioned parties. This list is managed by The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) which is connected to HM Treasury. The sanctions include measures like asset freezes, travel bans, and trade restrictions. The UK’s list differs from OFAC of the U.S. and the UN sanctions lists. This is because the UK sanctions list was updated due to post-Brexit sanctions policy changes. 

According to OFSI, 396 recorded cases of financial sanctions breaches were found in the financial year ending 2024, our Sanction Scanner experts are reporting that this is a 16% decrease on the previous year, but there were 242 closed cases, more than tripling the number of closed cases from the previous year. 

Who Needs to Check the UK Sanctions List?

We’ll now mention more about the types of sectors that need to be watching the UK sanctions list closely. Banks, payment providers, and insurers are the first type that need to be extra careful about the UK sanctions list. If your company is one of these, you should be conducting screenings of your clients and their transactions to make sure they’re not serving sanctioned parties. Our readers who are in the trade sector should also be careful. Exporters and importers should be verifying that the goods or technology they’re helping transport isn’t for sanctioned parties or jurisdictions. One other example we’ll give our readers is law firms, real estate agencies, and other Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs). These firms need to check closely, the reason why is because they handle large amounts of money and risky transfers with high-risk parties.

Let’s talk more about the financial sector by mentioning crypto firms and fintech platforms. AML compliance is really important for these firms since they heavily deal with financial assets in a digital environment, the crypto sector being a newer industry also doesn’t help their case a lot. Sanctions screening is great for customer onboarding and the later stages.

What Information Does the UK Sanctions List Include?

You might be wondering what you’ll come across when researching a sanctions list. In the UK Sanction List’s case, there will be lots of detailed information for you to look through. The first category we’ll mention is about the identity information the list will provide. As you can imagine, the list has full names, aliases the person might’ve used before, date of birth of the individual, and the nationality information. When thinking of firms, the information is a little bit different but still enough to identify them during onboarding. The information in the list include the company name, vessel they might’ve used if trade is involved, and registration details of the company. 

Once you’re all ready after analysing the identification information, the list will provide you the sanctions measures imposed to these particular parties. This might include measures like asset freezes, travel bans, and trade restrictions. Knowing these will help you while you figure out what actions are banned with that particular party you’re looking to collaborate with. These will help you immensely since the facts you’re receiving aren’t linked to any source but especially the ones that put the particular regulation out or the regime that it’s tied to.  You’ll be getting an explanation for the ban this way.

How to Search the UK Sanctions List

We will now walk you through the process of searching the UK Sanctions List. You can use the OFSI Consolidated List which is located on https://www.gov.uk and this is recommended since it’s the official source with the most up-to-date details. This list has all the designated persons under an asset freeze currently listed. A smaller firm will benefit greatly from manually searching potentially risky parties on this list. If your firm is on the larger side, our team recommends you use an integration service to fully reach compliance. Enabling API integration will help your company conduct real-time checks to automatically make sure your customer list never includes a sanctioned party. 

We can give some other smaller recommendations based on our observations regarding this subject. Our Sanction Scanner team has noticed that many firms use data enrichment tools to further discover aliases, registration details, and ownerships links of customers. These tools bring you extra information to make sure you miss no match. Batch screening will help those companies we’ve API integration before. Since you’re dealing with a higher volume of either customers or transactions, checking them all at one go will be smart in terms of efficiency. A match escalation process is also used, from what we can determine, to alert the compliance officer responsible or OFSI if the case is serious enough. This step is used since it is an important step in reaching compliance.

Types of Sanctions in the UK

We’ve talked extensively about the UK Sanctions List. Let’s now focus more on what can likely happen if you’re faced with sanctions. The first type of sanctions we’ll mention is financial sanctions that can be imposed upon you in the UK. These sanctions include freezing assets, and prohibiting other companies from providing you financial services. Banks, insurers, fintechs, and crypto firms are in this list of companies who shouldn’t allow transactions of sanctioned people or other parties.

Trade sanctions are also enforced, some of them are the restriction of exports and imports. These sanctions are mostly involving arms, dual-use equipment, and technology which can be used for military or prohibition reasons. Transport sanctions are also similar to trade sanctions, they will resctrict the entering of vehicles. Sanctioned ships and aircraft can’t enter UK spaces. They might be getting sanctioned because of suspicions against their services. Immigrations bans are also there to stop sanctioned parties. Especially for people who commit human rights violations, political figures, and business elites, this sanction essentially bans them from entering or passing through the UK. 

According to the sources of The Guardian, the OFSI imposed a penalty of £465,000 on HSF Moscow. The fine, which was upheld after Herbert Smith requested a ministerial review, relates to six payments worth a combined £3.9m, made by HSF Moscow to Alfa-Bank JSC, PJSC Sovcombank and PJSC Sberbank. The trio of banks are all subject to an asset freeze under Britain’s sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. 

Example List of United Kingdom Sanctions

The list is taken from The Government UK, It updates daily. For the current and the latest information please visit the original website. These are all about asset freeze and travel ban.

Key UK Sanctions Regulations in 2025

One of the most important sanctions regulations that have been imposed in the recent years has been the Iran Regulations. These sanctions are mostly focused on nuclear activities of the country. People and entities involved with the nuclear program of Iran are faced with mostly financial and trade sanctions. Asset freezes, banking restrictions, and export controls on dual-use technology are some of the sanctions placed on these parties. 

Another example we can give is sanctions against terrorism. These aren’t specific to one country, meaning they can affect terrorist groups and indiviuals worldwide. The sanctions imposed with counter-terrorism in mind are there to prevent UK resources from being used for terrorism activities. These sanctions apply to UK firms operating in the UK as well. The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations, also known as the Magnitsky-style sanctions, are crucial for the UK. The U.K. on May 20 2025 added seven entries to its global human rights sanctions list.  Since the UK is trying to keep people and firms responsible for corruption and human rights violations, these sanctions were put in place. Especially after Brexit, these regulations have been on the rise. 

What Are the UK Sanctions Against Russia? 

When talking about sanctions, Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations of 2019 can’t be missed. These sanctions are some of the most important steps coming from the UK in terms of checking Russia’s activities. These regulations were last updated in July of 2024, with biggest updates coming right after the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine. 

Financial sanctions like asset freezes, loan restrictions, banning of major banks like Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank are put in place by the UK. Trade sanctions, similarly, include the banning of trade when it comes to military goods, luxury items, technology, energy equipment, and more. The goods coming from occupied Ukranian regions are also sanctioned for the same reason. Transportation sanctions ban the entering of Russia related vehicles to UK spaces. Immigration bans and director disqualifications are also possible under UK law.

According to Financial Times, a company linked to Russia’s high-profile Rotenberg family has been fined £300,000 in August of 2025 for breaching UK sanctions. 

How Often Is the UK Sanctions List Updated?

Let’s talk more about how often the list should be checked in case of updates. For new designations, OFSI will most likely update the list in one working day. These can then be used by compliance teams to implement accordingly. Amendment examples are when an alias needs to be corrected, an address needs to be updated, or scope of restrictions need further updates. These take a bit longer, but you will be able to reach them within 3 working days for sure. 

High-risk regimes are of higher importance and they get updated accordingly. Places like Russia, Iran, or high-risk groups like terrorist organisations get daily updates if something occurs. Since all of these categories are more likely to update regularly because of their nature, your company should also be ready to make checks in real-time. This is why real-time screenings and automated checks are recommended in the UK to reach peak compliance.

Penalties for Breaching UK Sanctions

There are consequences to ignoring or knowingly breaching sanctions decided by the UK’s officials. OFSI, for example, can fine you up to £1 million or 50% of the value of the transaction. The fine is decided by seeing which amount is higher. You can get fined even if you didn’t mean to breach the sanctions. In the case of breaches to sanctions committed knowingly, the consequences pile up accordingly. Because of criminal liability this situation brings, you and other involved parties can face up to seven years in prison while also having the risk of unlimited fines. 

UK Sanctions List vs. Other International Lists

When compared to the US’ OFAC list or lists from the EU or the UN, UK’s list is differing in important ways. The foundation for the UK list is the SAMLA 2018, whereas the US uses executive orders for sanctions and the UN uses UN Resolutions and the EU law. The enforcement scope of the UK’s list is domestic and also ministerial; the US has extraterritorial reach and strict liability standards, the EU enforces in a consensus-based model. The EU uses member state agreement for consensus and the UN uses Security Council resolutions. 

As we’ve mentioned above the UK’s list gets updated daily; the US has real-time updates and the UN’s updates varies from case to case. The UK’s list deals with categories like financial, travel, and human rights. The scope of the US’ sanctions list is broader with the inclusion of the SDN list and sectoral sanctions. The EU list is using a more focused approach; diplomatic issues like human rights violations and conflicts of every kind are involved in their approach.

Best Practices for Compliance Screening Against the UK Sanctions List

So, how can you be prepared against all of this? Our Sanction Scanner first recommends our readers a risk-based approach. This approach will divide your customers according to their risk levels, helping you while checking them. Ongoing monitoring is also essential since your company’s customers may get included in the sanctions list overnight and without continuous checking, you’ll be missing those updates. Training your employees against the ever-changing sanctions lists and what to do when faced with a sanctioned party will help you long time. Audit trails are important if something suspicious occurs. Having your documents ready for investigations will keep your company safe and OFSI satisfied.