Risk and compliance

OFAC sanctions screening

Also called OFAC, SDN screening, sanctions screening.

OFAC sanctions screening is the search of a person against the Specially Designated Nationals List kept by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(R) makes a precondition of approving an EB-5 investor petition and which every US bank in the payment chain also runs on its own account.

What it decides

8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(R), headed Required checks and added by the RIA in 2022, provides that a petition filed under 8 U.S.C. 1154(a)(1)(H) may not be approved unless the Secretary of Homeland Security has searched for the investor and any associated employer of that investor on the SDN List of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control. So it is a named adjudication step rather than only a banking habit, and because the USCIS Policy Manual says nothing about it, the statute is the only text that describes it. The harder obstacle usually arrives earlier, when the money moves. A US person holding property blocked under 31 CFR chapter V must report the blocking to OFAC within 10 business days under 31 CFR 501.603(b)(1)(i), and a US person who rejects a transaction it may not lawfully process must report that within 10 business days under 31 CFR 501.604(c). Capital that cannot lawfully reach a US account never becomes an investment at all.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(R), quoted verbatim from the govinfo copy of the 2024 edition of title 8 and cross-checked against uscode.house.gov. 31 CFR 501.603(b)(1)(i) and 31 CFR 501.604(c), read from the eCFR renderer API for title 31, subtitle B, chapter V, part 501, subpart C, current text as amended at 91 FR 46837, 27 July 2026. USCIS Policy Manual Volume 6 Part G is no help: none of its eight chapters mentions OFAC, the SDN List or the Office of Foreign Assets Control, so the screening step has no Policy Manual guidance behind it.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into ofac sanctions screening rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Anti-money laundering and know your customerAnti-money laundering and know your customer are the Bank Secrecy Act checks a United States bank or broker runs on an EB-5 investor and on the money itself before an account opens or a wire clears, and they are separate from, and often stricter than, the lawful source of funds test USCIS applies to the petition.
Source of fundsSource of funds is the documentary showing that an EB-5 investor's required capital, and the money used to pay administrative costs and fees, was obtained from a lawful source and through lawful means, proved by records rather than by assertion.
Path of fundsPath of funds is the account by account trail documenting how the capital moved from its proven source into the new commercial enterprise, and it is a separate showing from proving that the source was lawful.
Due diligenceDue diligence in EB-5 is the investor's own independent check on the project, its business plan, its job model, its sponsor and its exit, and it answers a different question from whether the petition qualifies, because no government agency endorses or approves the offering behind a designated regional center.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary