The U.S. Treasury announced on Monday that it has removed 84 individuals and companies from its more than 17,000-name sanctions lists as part of an ongoing review aimed at concentrating sanctions on the most significant threats and reducing burdens on banks and other financial institutions.
The delistings follow a review process conducted across agencies to ensure removals would not undermine U.S. foreign policy or national security interests, the Treasury said. It added that names could be reinstated if circumstances warranted.
Secretary Scott Bessent launched a comprehensive review of Treasury sanctions programs and listings in May, with the aim of eliminating outdated entries and easing compliance for the financial sector. Earlier in the review the Treasury announced the removal of 76 outdated targets.
A Treasury official framed the broader goal as ensuring that "Treasury sanctions remain efficient, sharp, and focused, and to remove bloat left over from previous administrations." The official also noted the growth in designations in recent years, saying that "over 3,000 names were designated in 2024, compared to just 880 in 2017." The official added: "Sanctions are not intended to be a forever tool."
Officials said the second tranche of removals from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List includes several distinct groups:
- 36 people who have died and their associated listings;
- 33 Iraq-related entities first designated in 1991 or 1992;
- seven narcotics listings tied to Colombia that are now defunct or outdated; and
- eight disrupted narcotics kingpins.
In addition to the removals, the Treasury Department of State's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) updated listings for 22 individuals and entities to add or clarify missing key identifiers. OFAC identified a small number of duplicate entries on its sanctions lists - instances where the same person or property had been inadvertently listed more than once under separate entries - and resolved 18 such sets as part of Monday 's action.
The review has concentrated on older sanctions entries that often lack the identifying information now customary in new actions, such as place and date of birth, unique identification numbers, nationality, or gender. Treasury officials said that adding more complete identifiers should reduce the burden of compliance screening for banks and other financial institutions.
Brett Erickson, managing principal with Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the effort to streamline the sanctions list made sense and would allow banks to concentrate on the most serious threats. "At a time where so much movement is happening on the sanctions front, it needs to be as efficient as possible, or risk failures," he said.
In an internal Treasury document cited by officials, the department stated: "To decrease the compliance burden on financial institutions and improve national security outcomes, Treasury is reviewing outdated or hard-to-screen targets," and that the impact of sanctions should be "measured in terms of effect, impact, and national security benefit, not based on the number of names we put on a list."
As part of efforts to streamline delistings, Treasury rolled out a new online portal on June 29 that allows sanctioned individuals and firms to request removal from the SDN List.
Context and next steps
The Treasury emphasized that agency reviews precede removals to ensure that delistings do not harm policy objectives, and that entries may be restored if needed. OFAC continues to work through older entries to add missing identifiers and to cull duplicate listings identified during its review.
This tranche follows the initial set of 76 removals earlier in the review and is part of an effort to make the SDN List more operationally effective for both sanctions enforcers and the financial institutions required to screen against it.