The best OFAC screening software for car dealers checks every buyer, co-buyer, business buyer and third party payer on a deal against the OFAC sanctions lists in seconds and saves a dated PDF for the deal jacket. A single rooftop selling up to about 300 units a month needs 1,000 checks or fewer, which costs $14 to $50 a month. Dealer groups that want several logins, a whole customer file screened at once and automatic rescreening pay $150 to $500. The OFAC check that comes with a credit pull is a good start, but it misses every deal where no credit report is pulled.
We compared five options a dealership is likely to look at, including our own product, the OFAC alert bundled with credit and F&I platforms and the free Treasury tool. Prices come from each vendor's public pricing page in October 2026. They change, so confirm them before you buy.
OFAC screening software compared for car dealers
| Tool | Entry price | Checks included | Users | Record for the deal jacket | Covers cash deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OfacScanner Starter | $49 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly | 1,000 a month | 1 (5 on Growth) | PDF certificate per check with list version, time and user | Yes, any name you type |
| EasyOFAC | $14 a month (Basic), $49 (Grow), $129 (Pro) | 100, 500 or 1,500 a month | Not stated on the pricing page | Monthly compliance report by email on Grow and Pro | Yes, but it is built around an API |
| OFACScreen | $49 a month billed yearly (Starter), $149, $349 | 1,000 to 10,000 a month | 3 to 25 | PDF report on searches and batches | Yes |
| OFAC alert with your credit or F&I platform | Bundled or quoted by the vendor | One per credit pull | Your existing seats | Alert stored with the credit file | No, only when a report is pulled |
| Treasury Sanctions List Search | Free government website | One name at a time | Anyone | None, you print or screenshot it | Yes, by hand |
Two honest takeaways. If your store already pulls credit on 90 percent of deals and you only need to cover the rest, EasyOFAC Basic at $14 is the cheapest paid add on, as long as someone is comfortable with its API focused setup. If three F&I managers need their own logins from day one, OFACScreen includes three users on its entry plan. We built OfacScanner for the store that wants one screen, one PDF per deal and nothing to configure, and Starter covers a single rooftop for $24 a month on yearly billing.
Do car dealers have to do OFAC checks
Yes. Every U.S. business, including a car dealership, is prohibited from doing business with a person or company on the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. No regulation says the words "screen every car buyer", but civil liability is strict, so selling a vehicle to a listed person is a violation even if nobody in the store knew. Screening each deal and keeping the result is how a dealer shows it took reasonable care, and OFAC weighs an existing compliance process when it sets a penalty.
The maximum civil penalty under IEEPA is adjusted for inflation every year and is several hundred thousand dollars per violation or twice the value of the transaction, whichever is greater. Set against a $24 monthly plan, the math is short.
Is the OFAC check from the credit bureau enough
It is enough only for the deals where a credit report is pulled on every person involved. Most credit and F&I platforms return an OFAC alert with the report, and on a standard retail finance deal that covers the buyer and co-buyer. The gaps are predictable, and they are where trouble usually starts.
- Cash deals. How a vehicle is paid for does not change the OFAC rule. A buyer who pays cash or brings a cashier's check often never has a report pulled, so no alert runs.
- Outside financing. When the customer arrives with a check from their own credit union, the store may not pull credit at all.
- Business buyers. A fleet or commercial sale to an LLC needs the company name screened, and ideally the person signing. A consumer credit report does not screen the company. The OFAC business search page explains how suffixes and former names affect that check.
- Third party payers. A parent, employer or friend who wires the down payment is part of the deal even though they are not on the contract.
- Trade ins and lien payoffs. Money going out of the store, such as a payoff to a lienholder or a check to the trade in owner, is a payment too.
A standalone screening tool closes those gaps because it screens any name you type, whatever the deal structure. Most stores keep the credit bureau alert for financed deals and run a quick check in a separate tool for everything else.
Who to screen on every deal
Screen everyone whose name ends up in the deal jacket or whose money touches the deal. In practice that means the buyer and co-buyer, the business buyer and its authorized signer, anyone who pays part of the price, and the payee of any refund or payoff the store sends. Run the check before delivery, because once the vehicle and title leave the lot the transaction is done.
Add the country and date of birth when you have them. A common name such as Jose Hernandez or Mohammed Ali will often score close to a listed entry, and the extra fields are what let you clear a namesake with a written reason instead of stopping a good deal. Our OFAC check for car dealers page walks through a typical deal check in the F&I office.
How much OFAC screening costs a dealership
Cost follows deal count and the number of people who run checks. Here is what each size of store usually pays with the tools above.
| Dealership | Checks a month | Typical monthly cost | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Independent lot, 20 to 60 units | Under 150 | $14 to $49 | EasyOFAC Basic or OfacScanner Starter |
| Franchise rooftop, 100 to 300 units | 300 to 1,000 | $24 to $49 | OfacScanner Starter or OFACScreen Starter |
| Dealer group with several stores | 2,000 and up | $149 to $499 | OFACScreen Professional or OfacScanner Growth |
A dealer group usually moves up for two reasons. The first is seats, because each store's F&I office needs its own login and the record has to show who ran the check. The second is the customer file. A group that wants every customer in its CRM or DMS screened once and then watched for list changes needs CSV upload and monitoring, which are on OfacScanner Growth at $249 a month billed yearly.
What to look for in OFAC software for a dealership
Dealers do not need a bank grade platform, but a few features save real time in the F&I office.
- A PDF per check. The lender, the auditor or the state examiner asks for proof that this buyer was screened on this date. A dated certificate printed into the deal jacket answers that in seconds.
- Fuzzy and alias matching. Exact text matching misses spelling variants and transliterated names, and those are the hits that matter.
- A clear rating. Clear, Review or Likely is easier for a busy F&I manager than a raw list of candidates.
- Room for business names. Commercial and fleet sales need company screening with legal suffixes handled.
- Several logins on the larger plans. Shared passwords break the record of who ran which check.
If you are weighing a cheaper API first tool against a browser based one, our EasyOFAC alternative page lays out where each one wins. For a wider view across industries, see the best OFAC screening software for small business.
What happens if a buyer is on the OFAC list
Do not complete the sale. A possible match is not a confirmed match, so first compare the date of birth, address and country with the listed entry on the official Treasury search. If the match holds, stop the deal, do not return any deposit on your own, block the funds as the regulations require and report to OFAC within 10 business days. Call counsel before anything else, because handing money back to a listed person can be a second violation.
OFAC sits next to several other dealer obligations, including the FTC Safeguards Rule, the Red Flags Rule and Form 8300 for cash over $10,000. If you track them all in one place, a compliance management tool that maps each obligation to an owner and a due date keeps the list from living in someone's head.
A short buying checklist for dealers
- Can the tool screen a buyer who never had credit pulled
- Does every check produce a dated PDF you can print for the deal jacket
- Does it screen business names as well as people
- How many checks a month do you get, and what happens in a big sales month
- How many F&I managers get their own login
- Can a dealer group upload the full customer file and keep it under watch
You can try a name right now in the OFAC search console at the top of this page. It returns a rating against the SDN and consolidated lists in seconds. Create an account to save the PDF for the deal jacket and pick the plan that fits your store on the pricing page.