RSSChangelog

The statement-level API available at the /statements endpoint currently includes metadata statements, identified by the id property name. These statements are not part of the data payload but rather entity checksums used internally by OpenSanctions for change detection. As they have caused some confusion, we have recently removed them from the statements.csv data export, and will now do the same for the API.

We're planning to remove the Lithuania PEPs from the register of private interests (lt_pep_declarations) from the regular updates of the default collection on August 17th, 2026. As of April 2025, the Lithuanian Chief Official Ethics Commission (VTEK) has required API authentication for access to the declarations search page, which prevents automated crawling of the data. See the GitHub issue, or suggest an official data source.

The default collection is focused on datasets representing risk, and includes entities within those sources as well as the enrichment of those and related entities. iso9362_bic was initially added to default because it's relatively small, but since it's purely reference data, we've decided to give it the same treatment as other larger reference datasets.

To that end, we're planning to remove the full Business Identifier Code (BIC) Reference Data (iso9362_bic) from the default collection on June 15th, 2026. It will be replaced by the new Business Identifier Code (BIC) Reference Data (ext_iso9362_bic) enrichment dataset, containing the risk-related entities from this source.

Read more about data enrichment.

tl;dr: Replace all use of gb_hmt_sanctions with gb_fcdo_sanctions (in the API and in bulk data scenarios) by January 28. gb_hmt_sanction will stop receiving new entities and eventually be removed from the database entirely.

Policy Change#

The UK government is consolidating its sanctions designation lists into a single source. Starting January 28, 2026, at 09:00 GMT, the UK Sanctions List (UKSL) will become the sole official list for all UK sanctions designations. The OFSI Consolidated List of Asset Freeze Targets and its associated search tool will cease updates from this date.

This consolidation follows the Cross-government review of sanctions implementation and enforcement, responding to industry feedback that a single list will remove duplication and simplify compliance checks.

Impact on OpenSanctions Data#

OpenSanctions currently maintains two separate UK datasets:

• UK HMT/OFSI Consolidated List of Targets (derived from the OFSI Consolidated List)
• UK FCDO Sanctions List (derived from the UK Sanctions List)

Following the UK government's consolidation, we will transition to maintaining a single aggregated UK sanctions dataset sourced from the unified UK Sanctions List. We expect this to be a smooth transition:

• The consolidated UK Sanctions List is already covered by our existing UK FCDO Sanctions List dataset and will be expanded by the UK government on January 28, 2026 to include all sanctions designations
• The UK government has confirmed that the existing data format and structure of the UK Sanctions List will remain unchanged, so we do not anticipate any processing errors or disruptions
• By the end of 2025, we will update our data ingestion process to consume both the XML and CSV formats of the UK Sanctions List. This dual-format approach provides redundancy in case one format is published with delays or technical issues
• The UK HMT Financial Sanctions dataset will not receive updates after January 28, 2026, as the underlying OFSI Consolidated List will no longer be published. These datasets will be formally deprecated on that date, and entities exclusively designated on that list will stop being tagged with the sanction topic.
• Historic OFSI Group IDs will be preserved in our data for entities designated before January 28, 2026 for another six months for reconciliation purposes. New designations from January 28, 2026 onwards will use the UK Sanctions List's Unique ID as the primary identifier.

For more information, see the UK government's guidance on moving to a single list.

In Q4 2025, stretching into Q1 2026, we will be migrating our billing system for both API and bulk data customers from Chargebee to Stripe. This will reduce the number of moving parts in our service, as we already use Stripe to collect all credit card payments.

We hope that this change will pass unnoticed for our customers. Please bear with us if you do notice any minor hiccups during this time. In particular, customers may receive a partial service invoice for SaaS usage. Our highest priority during this migration is to never overcharge any of our customers. As always, if something doesn't look or feel right, please get in touch with our support team.

For designated entries, the EU Financial Sanctions Files (FSF) sanctions list includes names translated to one or more of the official languages of the European Union.

Currently, all of these names are included in the name field, marking them as primary names. Once this change becomes effective, they will be listed in the alias field. The primary (English) name of the entry will still be listed in the name field.

This change is part of a broader effort to ensure that the name field only contains the highest-quality names available, and that names that can be considered less relevant are listed in alias and weakAlias fields instead.

Users of our hosted API and yente are not affected by this change, as the built-in scoring algorithms consider both the alias and the name fields for matching of names.

After releasing the new logic-v2 result scoring algorithm in September, we're planning to make it the default used by the OpenSanctions API service when no other algorithm is specified (or the best algorithm is selected). API users can prepare for this change in two ways:

• Adopt logic-v2. The new system significantly reduces false positive alert rates and improves match quality. We also plan to make this new algorithm the focus of future feature enhancements and precision improvements.
• Specify algorithm=logic-v1 as part of your query string to opt out of this change. This will freeze the use of logic-v1, the current best/default algorithm. This option is recommended for API users where scoring changes may require a regulatory approval/notification. We may choose to fully retire logic-v1 within the next 24 months.

Please feel free to reach out to the support team with any questions regarding the new scoring algorithm.

Suspended: After receiving feedback from our customers, we have decided to reverse this decision. The cutoff parameter has been marked as deprecated, but will remain in place indefinitely. The announcement below is only retained for reference. It will not be implemented.

In an effort to simplify our Matching API, we are removing the cutoff parameter. Once this change becomes effective, only matches, i.e. those results scoring higher than threshold will be returned. If you care about low-scoring results being returned, please adjust the threshold parameter instead. The match property on the returned results will remain and function as before, and match will be set to true for all results once this change becomes effective.

After the introduction of sanction program identifiers, we're now migrating a number of smaller national sanctions lists to use the same mechanism. Until now, we annotated hard-coded program names in these datasets (as values for the Sanction:program property).

As these program names are not authoritative, we are now replacing them with Sanction:programId references. This creates a clearer separation between the data provided from source, and analytical annotations stemming from our data pipeline.

Read more about using sanctions programs.

Affected datasets:

• au_listed_terrorist_orgs
• br_ceis
• ca_named_research_orgs
• cz_terrorists
• eu_esma_saris
• interpol_api
• ir_sanctions
• kz_afmrk_sanctions
• li_posting_sanctions
• lt_fiu_freezes
• nz_russia_sanctions
• Pending:
• pk_proscribed_persons
• pl_finanse_sanctions
• ru_mfa_sanctions
• sg_terrorists
• ua_nsdc_sanctions
• un_1718_vessels
• us_bis_denied
• us_cuba_sanctions
• us_ddtc_debarred
• us_ddtc_enforcements
• us_dod_chinese_milcorps
• us_fcc_covered_list
• us_fed_enforcements
• us_hhs_exclusions
• us_state_terrorist_orgs

We are planning an upgrade to the technology stack powering the OpenSanctions API in the coming days. While new functionality will be described in a separate announcement, users of the system might notice small changes in matching results. They can be a result of:

• Improved company type suffix/prefix matching (LLC, OAO, OJSC, etc.).
• More precise retrieval of matching candidates with very generic names (A B C Limited), and of names across different scripts (Putin and بوتين).
• Fix of a bug in logic-v1 in which certain match scores for organizations could vary between requests.
• Implicit support for a broader range of jurisdictions (eg. Alberta is recognized as Canada).

Of course, it is our goal to keep matching results stable over time. The result of rolling out these improvements to some of the existing matching systems, however, should strictly improve precision and reduce false positive burden for existing users.

Effective December 31, 2025, the secondary KYB data API at api.graph.opensanctions.org will be shut down and no longer supported.

We’ve made this decision to focus on improving and expanding the core OpenSanctions dataset and API. If you are using the KYB/Graph API, please plan to transition before the end of the year. We encourage you to reach out if the impact of this change is severe for your business.

We have begun a two-step migration in the /match API response format that affects users relying on the features and matcher fields.

1. The matcher field in /match responses will be removed after February 27, 2026. Equivalent information is available via the /algorithms route (free to use).

2. A new explanations field has been added that is a strict superset of features. In addition to the partial scores produced by each component of the matching system, it includes textual descriptions of the matching decisions from each of these subsystems. These descriptions are designed for display in analyst workbenches or can be passed to generative AI tools to help interpret screening alerts. The features field will be removed after February 27, 2026. Users should update their applications to consume explanations before this date.

We're planning to remove the Syrian Observatory of Political and Economic Networks (sy_obsalytics_opensyr) from the regular updates of the default collection on June 9th, 2025. The dataset, created by research group Obsalytics is a one-off import of a small subset of the live database, and the export into OpenSanctions was last updated in February 2023.

Given the increasing rate of change in the sanctions landscape surrounding Syria - with the EU and US both revoking parts of their existing regimes - we've decided to avoid the presence of outdated information on our website by removing this dataset. We recommend interested parties use the available search function for the OpenSyr database for additional research.

We'd like to strongly advise all customers that are using the all dataset to use default instead.

The all dataset is an internal artifact of our data infrastructure. Other than having a pleasing name, it is a strictly inferior data product. As of February 2025, we've reduced the update frequency of all to monthly updates - meaning that users of the all scope will use outdated data in their systems.

all also includes data meant for internal verification/testing purposes which should not be included in production systems (unless you have a regulatory requirement to screen for 1990 "Die Hard" movie villain, John Gruber).

A new version of the API will remove the regression-v2 scoring algorithm, but leave regression-v1 in place for now. regression-v2 is a historic scoring method that is discouraged for screening use (it's intended use is internal de-duplication of entities in our database).

A new regression-v3 scoring mechanism is now being developed and will be released, but not recommended for screening use. Any requests that are sent to the API using regression-v2 will be re-written to use regression-v3 in the future.

This release updates various dependencies, introducing new fields in the followthemoney schema and bringing in security patches for the web stack dependencies.

We're also implementing the Reconciliation API's Data Extension protocol for the first time, allowing users to enrich OpenRefine tables with new columns using the API.

See more: https://github.com/opensanctions/yente/releases/tag/v4.2.0

The dataset Liechtenstein Posted Workers Act (EntsG) Sanctions was previously running of a static, outdated version of the data which had been published in HTML format. It will now be updated from a regularly-published PDF file. As part of this update, the IDs of the listed entities are changed, and the topic applied to first-time penalised entities ("Übertretungen" i.S.v Art 9) is changed from debarment to reg.warn.

The sanctions regime under Section 353 of the Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors Report has expired in December 2023. To reflect this, we've removed the topic sanction from all entities in the dataset. We will remove the relevant dataset entirely after November 1, 2024, and move the formerly-designated entities for reference to the US Special Legislative Exclusions dataset

Section 353 concerns foreign individuals who have been reported for knowingly engaging in activities that undermine democratic processes or institutions, participating in significant corruption, or obstructing investigations into such acts in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.