OpenSanctions

OpenSanctions is an open database of international sanctions, watchlists, criminal designations and politically exposed persons (PEPs), published as a screening API, bulk data downloads and MIT-licensed open-source software from Berlin. It consolidates hundreds of primary government sources — OFAC, the EU consolidated list, UN Security Council, UK FCDO, procurement debarment registers, regulatory enforcements and national PEP registers — into a single de-duplicated entity graph expressed in the FollowTheMoney ontology it stewards. The hosted Screening API at api.opensanctions.org offers query-by-example entity matching with scored, per-feature explanations, free-text search, entity fetch with relationship traversal, statement-level provenance for every asserted value, and an OpenRefine reconciliation manifest. It is used for customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, supply-chain and vessel screening, KYB, and investigative journalism. The dataset is free for non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0; commercial use is licensed, and the API is metered at EUR 0.10 per query.

OpenSanctions publishes 4 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Data access API, Matching API, Reconciliation API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Sanctions Screening, Anti-Money Laundering, Politically Exposed Persons, Compliance, and Financial Crime.

OpenSanctions’ developer surface includes engineering blog, documentation, API reference, getting-started guide, support, pricing, signup flow, and 34 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

73.1/100 exemplar ▬ flat Agent 30/100 agent ready Front door AI 2/6 trace saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-20 · rubric v0.22.0

AccessSelf serveFree trial

1 APIs 1 MCP Servers

Sanctions Screening Anti-Money LaunderingPolitically Exposed PersonsCompliance Financial Crime KYC Entity Resolution Open Data Risk Data Due Diligence Public APIs agent-native

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-20 · rubric v0.22.0

Composite quality — 73.1/100 · exemplar

Contract Quality 9.1 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 12.1 / 15

Access Clarity 13.8 / 15

Operational Transparency 7.4 / 10

Contract Governance 1.6 / 9

Discoverability 6.2 / 8

Regulatory Posture 10.0 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 30/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/opensanctions: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

OpenSanctions Data access API

Endpoints for fetching data from the API, either related to individual entities, or for bulk data access in various forms.

OpenSanctions Matching API

Endpoints for conducting a user-facing entity search or matching a local data store against the given dataset.

OpenSanctions Reconciliation API

The Reconciliation Service provides four separate endpoints that work in concert to implement the data matching API used by OpenRefine, Wikidata and several other services and u...

OpenSanctions System information API

Service metadata endpoints for health checking and getting the application metadata to be used in client applications.

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

OpenSanctions MCP Server

MCP SERVER

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Opensanctions Plans Pricing

4 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Opensanctions Rate Limits

3 limits

RATE LIMITS

Security Posture 4

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Opensanctions Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Opensanctions Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Opensanctions Vulnerability Disclosure

Hackerone · contact published

SECURITY

Opensanctions Trust Center

ISO/IEC 27001:2022

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Opensanctions Agentic Access

12 operations · 2 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 5

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

SignUp

SignUp

Login

Sandbox

Sandbox

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 4

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

MCPServer

AgentSkill

LLMsTxt

Design & Contract 5

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conformance

Lifecycle

ErrorCatalog

Conventions

DataModel

Build 5

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

SourceCode

Packages

SDKs

CLI

Access & Security 6

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Security

Security

VulnerabilityDisclosure

VulnerabilityDisclosure

TrustCenter

TrustCenter

Compliance

Compliance

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 6

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support

HelpCenter

StatusPage

Deprecation

ChangeLog

RateLimits

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

Plans

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

PublicAPIsListing

PublicAPIsListing

Source (apis.yml)

aid: opensanctions
name: OpenSanctions
description: OpenSanctions is an open database of international sanctions, watchlists, criminal designations and politically
  exposed persons (PEPs), published as a screening API, bulk data downloads and MIT-licensed open-source software from Berlin.
  It consolidates hundreds of primary government sources — OFAC, the EU consolidated list, UN Security Council, UK FCDO, procurement
  debarment registers, regulatory enforcements and national PEP registers — into a single de-duplicated entity graph expressed
  in the FollowTheMoney ontology it stewards. The hosted Screening API at api.opensanctions.org offers query-by-example entity
  matching with scored, per-feature explanations, free-text search, entity fetch with relationship traversal, statement-level
  provenance for every asserted value, and an OpenRefine reconciliation manifest. It is used for customer due diligence, transaction
  monitoring, supply-chain and vessel screening, KYB, and investigative journalism. The dataset is free for non-commercial
  use under CC BY-NC 4.0; commercial use is licensed, and the API is metered at EUR 0.10 per query.
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/opensanctions.png
url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-08-27'
x-source: public-apis/public-apis
x-category: Open Data
x-tier: 3
x-tier-reason: bulk-registered-from-public-apis
accessModel:
  pricing: usage-based
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: true
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Self-serve signup with a 30-day trial
  confidence: high
  source:
  - https://www.opensanctions.org/api/
  - https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/authentication/
  - https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/faq/
  generated: '2026-08-27'
  method: searched
tags:
- Sanctions Screening
- Anti-Money Laundering
- Politically Exposed Persons
- Compliance
- Financial Crime
- KYC
- Entity Resolution
- Open Data
- Risk Data
- Due Diligence
- Public APIs
- agent-native
tags_raw:
- Sanctions Screening
- Anti-Money Laundering
- Politically Exposed Persons
- Compliance
- Financial Crime
- Know Your Customer
- Entity Resolution
- Open Data
- Risk Data
- Due Diligence
- Public APIs
- agent-native
apis:
- aid: opensanctions:opensanctions-data-access-api
  name: OpenSanctions Data access API
  description: Endpoints for fetching data from the API, either related to individual entities, or for bulk data access in
    various forms.
  humanURL: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  baseURL: https://api.opensanctions.org
  tags:
  - Data Access
  tags_raw:
  - Data access
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/opensanctions-data-access-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/
  - type: ToolCrosswalk
    url: mcp/opensanctions-tool-crosswalk.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/opensanctions-data-model.yml
- aid: opensanctions:opensanctions-matching-api
  name: OpenSanctions Matching API
  description: Endpoints for conducting a user-facing entity search or matching a local data store against the given dataset.
  humanURL: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  baseURL: https://api.opensanctions.org
  tags:
  - Matching
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/opensanctions-matching-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/
  - type: ToolCrosswalk
    url: mcp/opensanctions-tool-crosswalk.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/opensanctions-data-model.yml
- aid: opensanctions:opensanctions-reconciliation-api
  name: OpenSanctions Reconciliation API
  description: The Reconciliation Service provides four separate endpoints that work in concert to implement the data matching
    API used by OpenRefine, Wikidata and several other services and utilities.
  humanURL: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  baseURL: https://api.opensanctions.org
  tags:
  - Reconciliation
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/opensanctions-reconciliation-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/
  - type: ToolCrosswalk
    url: mcp/opensanctions-tool-crosswalk.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/opensanctions-data-model.yml
- aid: opensanctions:opensanctions-system-information-api
  name: OpenSanctions System information API
  description: Service metadata endpoints for health checking and getting the application metadata to be used in client applications.
  humanURL: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  baseURL: https://api.opensanctions.org
  tags:
  - System Information
  tags_raw:
  - System information
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/opensanctions-system-information-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/
  - type: ToolCrosswalk
    url: mcp/opensanctions-tool-crosswalk.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/opensanctions-data-model.yml
common:
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/opensanctions-api-overlay.yaml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/opensanctions-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/opensanctions-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/
- type: PublicAPIsListing
  url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
- type: Blog
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/articles/rss/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/
- type: APIReference
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/reference/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/api/quickstart/
- type: Support
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/support/
- type: HelpCenter
  url: https://discuss.opensanctions.org/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/opensanctions
- type: SourceCode
  url: https://github.com/opensanctions/api-examples
- type: Pricing
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/api/
- type: SignUp
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/api/
- type: Login
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/account/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/terms/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/privacy/
- type: Security
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/security/
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/opensanctions-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/opensanctions-trust-center.yml
- type: Compliance
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/security/
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/opensanctions-conformance.yml
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.opensanctions.org/
- type: Deprecation
  url: https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/data/changes/
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/opensanctions-lifecycle.yml
- type: ChangeLog
  url: changelog/opensanctions-changelog.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/opensanctions-authentication.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/opensanctions-problem-types.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/opensanctions-conventions.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/opensanctions-rate-limits.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/opensanctions-plans-pricing.yml
- type: Packages
  url: packages/opensanctions-packages.yml
- type: SDKs
  url: packages/opensanctions-packages.yml
- type: CLI
  url: cli/opensanctions-cli.yml
- type: Sandbox
  url: sandbox/opensanctions-sandbox.yml
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/opensanctions-mcp.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/opensanctions-llms.txt
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/opensanctions-data-model.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-08-27'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 26
  pass: local-v1

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