The best OFAC screening software for a title company checks every buyer, seller, entity and payee on a file against the OFAC SDN and non-SDN lists in seconds, and saves a dated PDF you can drop into the closing file. For an office closing up to about 200 files a month, that costs $14 to $50 a month. Larger agencies with several branches pay $150 to $500 for more seats, bulk uploads and automatic rescreening. The record matters more than the search itself, because the record is what a lender, underwriter or auditor asks to see.
We compared five options a title or escrow office is likely to shortlist, including our own product, the search built into closing platforms and the free Treasury tool. Prices come from each vendor's public pricing page. They change, so confirm before you buy.
OFAC screening software compared for title companies
| Tool | Entry price | Searches included | Users | Record for the closing file | Rescreening |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OfacScanner Starter | $49 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly | 1,000 a month | 1 (5 on Growth) | PDF certificate with every check, list version and time printed on it | On Growth ($499, or $249 billed yearly), up to 50,000 records |
| 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 | 100 to 10,000 monitored names depending on plan |
| 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 | 10 to 500 saved names rescreened daily |
| Search inside your closing platform | Depends on your license or a per search fee | Depends on the vendor | Your existing seats | Report attached to the order | Usually none, the search runs once per order |
| Treasury Sanctions List Search | Free government website | One name at a time | Anyone | None, you screenshot it yourself | None |
Two honest takeaways. If price decides and you close fewer than 20 files a month, EasyOFAC Basic at $14 is the cheapest paid option here. If three closers need their own logins on day one, OFACScreen includes three seats at its entry price, where our Starter plan has one. OfacScanner wins on the record: every check produces a PDF with the name searched, the rating, the closest listed entries, the list version and the time, with no extra fee, and the score shows why a name rated the way it did. That is the page a lender wants in the file.
Do title companies have to run OFAC checks?
Yes, in practice. OFAC rules apply to every U.S. person and business, and a title or escrow company that disburses funds to a blocked person has violated them even if nobody in the office knew. Liability is strict, and the maximum civil penalty under IEEPA is $377,700 per violation or twice the value of the transaction, whichever is greater. On a real estate closing, twice the transaction is the bigger number.
No regulation names a specific tool or says "search every name". The pressure comes from three places. Lender closing instructions often require a search of the borrower and seller against the SDN list before funding. Underwriters ask their agents about it. And OFAC looks at whether a company had a working compliance program when it decides how hard to penalize a violation. A search with a saved result answers all three.
Who should a title company screen on each file?
Screen every party who signs, takes title or receives money. On a typical residential purchase that is four to six names. On a commercial deal with entities on both sides it can be a dozen.
- Buyers and borrowers, each person on the contract
- Sellers, each owner of record who receives proceeds
- The LLC, trust or partnership that takes or gives title
- Managers, trustees and officers who sign for an entity
- Private lenders and anyone else paid from the settlement statement
- Any party added late, such as an assignee or a replacement buying entity
Entities need extra care. Under the OFAC 50 percent rule, a company owned 50 percent or more by blocked persons is blocked even when its own name appears on no list. Screening software checks the names you give it. It does not research ownership. When an LLC buys with cash, ask who owns it and screen those people too. Our page on the OFAC check for real estate closings walks through the full party list and where the check fits before disbursement.
What to look for in OFAC screening software for title and escrow work
A record that stands on its own in the file
A closing file is read years later by someone who was not in the room. The screening record should show the name as typed, the date and time, the list version, the result and who ran it. A screenshot of a government web page shows almost none of that. OFAC now requires records to be kept for 10 years, up from 5, so the format has to survive a long time. Our guide to OFAC recordkeeping requirements lists the fields examiners look for.
Fuzzy matching with a score you can explain
Names on the SDN list come with aliases and several spellings from Arabic, Cyrillic and Chinese. Exact matching misses real hits. Loose matching flags every Garcia and every Mohammed, and a closer who sees a false alarm on each file stops reading them. Look for a score per candidate, the alias that matched, and inputs for date of birth and country, which rule out most namesakes in a few seconds. You can try this on a real name with our OFAC name search.
Company and trust names handled properly
Buying entities are where real estate risk concentrates. The tool should search organizations as organizations, strip legal suffixes such as LLC, Ltd and SA before matching, and check former names. An OFAC business search built for company names returns far fewer junk results than a person search pointed at an LLC.
A clear way to close out a possible match
When a name comes back as a possible match, the closer needs to compare the details, write one sentence on why it is or is not the same person, and move on. That note belongs with the record. Without it, a cleared false positive looks the same as an ignored hit.
Speed at the closing table
Parties change the day before closing. A check that takes ten seconds in a browser gets done. A check that needs a request to another department gets skipped. If your office also handles remote closings, where the signer is identified through an online notary session and never visits the office, the name search and its saved record are one of the few controls you still run yourself.
How much does OFAC screening cost for a title company?
Most title and escrow offices pay between $14 and $150 a month. The price depends on search volume, seats and whether saved names are rescreened. To size it, multiply your monthly closings by the average number of names per file.
| Office size | Closings a month | Names to screen (about 5 per file) | What fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo agent or attorney | Up to 20 | Up to 100 | EasyOFAC Basic ($14) or OfacScanner Starter ($24 billed yearly) |
| Single office | 20 to 200 | 100 to 1,000 | OfacScanner Starter ($49, or $24 billed yearly) or OFACScreen Starter ($49 billed yearly) |
| Multi branch agency | 200 to 2,000 | 1,000 to 10,000 | OfacScanner Growth ($499, or $249 billed yearly) or OFACScreen Business ($349 billed yearly) |
On our plans new checks pause at the monthly limit, so a busy month never turns into an overage bill. Every limit is on the pricing page.
Is the search built into your closing software enough?
It can be, if it saves a report to the order and your team runs it on every party. Closing platforms have offered integrated SDN searches for years. A Patriot Search integration for SoftPro was announced in 2016, and RamQuest added Patriot Searches to its Closing Market in 2017. Check three things before you rely on one. First, whether the search is included in your license or billed per search. Second, whether it covers parties you add after the order is opened, such as a private lender payee. Third, whether the report shows the list date and the reviewer's note on a cleared match.
A standalone tool earns its place when you screen people outside an order (vendors, employees, a buyer who has not opened a file yet), when you want one process across branches that run different platforms, or when the built in search returns too many false alarms to be useful.
Is the free Treasury search enough for a title company?
The Treasury Sanctions List Search is the official source and it is fine for an occasional lookup. It handles one name at a time and keeps no record of what you searched or when. For a title company the missing record is the problem, because the reason you search is to prove later that you did. We set out the details in our comparison with the Treasury search.
Which OFAC screening tool fits which title office
A solo agent with a handful of closings a month should pick the cheapest tool that saves a record. That is EasyOFAC Basic, or our Starter plan on yearly billing if you want a PDF per check instead of a monthly summary.
A single office closing 50 to 200 files a month should pick on the record and on seats. If one person runs all searches, OfacScanner Starter gives 1,000 checks and a certificate for each. If several closers search on their own, compare OFACScreen Starter with three seats against our Growth plan with five seats and CSV upload.
A multi branch agency needs bulk upload, a shared queue for possible matches, and rescreening of long running files such as construction escrows. That is the Growth tier of any tool. Ours screens up to 50,000 names a month, rescreens saved records after every list update and keeps records for 60 months.
Whichever you choose, run a few of your own files through it first. Start with an OFAC search on a common name and on an LLC from a recent closing, and look at what the saved record shows.
A short buying checklist
- Does every search produce a dated record with the list version, without an extra fee?
- Can you add date of birth and country to cut false alarms?
- Are entities searched as organizations, with suffixes removed?
- Can a closer clear a possible match with a written reason that stays on the record?
- How many people can log in at the entry price?
- What happens at the monthly limit, a pause or an overage charge?
- Is the price public, and can you start today without a sales call?