US Sanctions Statistics 2026 | Countries, Impact & Key Facts

What Are US Sanctions?

US sanctions are legal restrictions imposed by the federal government that block designated foreign governments, individuals, companies, vessels, and entire economic sectors from accessing the American financial system and engaging in trade with US persons. They are administered primarily by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) — a division of the US Department of the Treasury — alongside the Department of State and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). As of April 2026, the United States runs the most extensive sanctions regime of any nation on earth, with more than 35 active OFAC programs targeting everything from comprehensive country-wide embargoes to individual oligarchs, terror financiers, drug cartels, and cyber criminals. The power of US sanctions derives not just from domestic law, but from the dollar’s dominance as the world’s reserve currency — any foreign bank that processes a dollar transaction for a sanctioned party risks losing access to the entire US financial system, giving Washington leverage that extends far beyond American borders.

What makes 2026 a particularly critical year to examine is the sheer pace of change. The second Trump administration, inaugurated in January 2025, has reshuffled US sanctions priorities at a speed rarely seen: reimposing “maximum pressure” on Iran within its first two weeks in office, sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies in October 2025, terminating the Syria sanctions regime following the fall of the Assad government, deploying secondary tariffs against India for buying Russian oil, and pushing dozens of rounds of Iran oil designations every single month throughout the year. Meanwhile, OFAC issued 14 enforcement actions in 2025 totaling over $265 million in penalties — a dramatic jump from just $49 million in 2024 — driven by a landmark $215.9 million penalty against a California venture capital firm for servicing a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Understanding US sanctions statistics in 2026 means grappling with a system that is simultaneously the world’s most powerful economic weapon and one of its most contested foreign policy tools.

US Sanctions 2026 — Key Facts at a Glance

The table below assembles the most essential, confirmed facts about US sanctions as of 2026, drawn exclusively from official US government sources and authoritative policy research institutions.

Source: US Department of the Treasury / OFAC (ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions); CNAS, Sanctions by the Numbers: 2025 Year in Review, January 2026; Sidley Austin, Five Key Takeaways from 2025 OFAC Enforcement, 2026; Paul Weiss / Foley Hoag on GVA Capital penalty; Wikipedia — United States government sanctions; Atlantic Council Russia Sanctions Database, 2025–2026; Middle East Forum, Iran Economic Crisis Review, December 2025

What these numbers collectively reveal is a sanctions machine running at full throttle. OFAC updated its lists on April 15, 16, and 17 of 2026 alone — covering Iran, counter-terrorism, Sudan, and Nicaragua designations — demonstrating that this is not a static policy but an actively evolving enforcement operation updated multiple times per week. The jump in total penalties from $49 million in 2024 to over $265 million in 2025 is extraordinary, even accounting for the fact that $215.9 million came from a single action against GVA Capital. That case set a new standard for how OFAC treats investment firms, real estate managers, and other “gatekeeper” professionals who manage assets tied to sanctioned parties. The message from OFAC is explicit: looking past legal formalities to the underlying economic reality of a relationship is now the non-negotiable standard, and compliance ignorance is not a defense.

The $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets and the 22% drop in Russian oil and gas revenues in 2025 represent the most significant sanctions-driven economic displacement of any major economy in modern history — yet Russia’s GDP still grew at 3.6% in 2024, driven by war spending, showing the limits of what sanctions alone can achieve against a country with deep fiscal buffers. Iran’s story is the sharper case study of sanctions impact right now: with the rial trading at over 1 million to the dollar by March 2026 — less than half its value just nine months earlier — and inflation running at 49%, the Iranian economy is experiencing an acute crisis that the US Treasury Secretary himself has described as the “grand culmination” of the maximum pressure strategy.

OFAC Sanctioned Countries Full List in the US 2026

Not all US sanctions programs are equal — the distinction between a comprehensive embargo and a targeted sanctions program determines whether virtually all business with a country is blocked, or only transactions involving specific designated parties.

Source: US Department of the Treasury, OFAC — Sanctions Programs and Country Information (ofac.treasury.gov); CNAS, Sanctions by the Numbers: 2025 Year in Review; OFAC Recent Actions (ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions), accessed April 18, 2026; Wikipedia — United States government sanctions

The geography of US-sanctioned countries in 2026 spans every major region of the world, but the enforcement intensity is concentrated at the top. The four comprehensively sanctioned countries — Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria — face the broadest restrictions, where nearly all commercial and financial activity involving US persons requires an OFAC license. Cuba holds the distinction of being subject to the longest-running US embargo in history, now entering its seventh decade. Iran’s sanctions architecture is the most actively enforced in the current period, with the Trump administration’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-2 unleashing a campaign of near-weekly designation rounds targeting oil networks, shadow banking systems, proxy groups, and weapons procurement networks across the Middle East, Asia, and beyond.

The Syria overhaul of 2025 deserves particular attention as one of the most significant changes to OFAC’s program landscape in years. When the Assad regime fell in December 2024, the US government moved unusually fast — revoking six executive orders, delisting 518 parties, and repealing the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act via the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The redesignation of 139 Assad-affiliated individuals under new authorities maintained accountability for the former regime’s worst actors while opening the door to economic engagement with Syria’s new government. This is rare: US sanctions programs almost never reverse this quickly or this comprehensively, making the Syria episode a significant data point for anyone studying how sanctions are used as a tool of diplomatic signaling, not just punishment.

OFAC SDN List Designations & Trends in the US 2026

The Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List is the most powerful single instrument in the US sanctions toolkit — and tracking how it grows and shifts tells you exactly where US foreign policy priorities lie.

Source: CNAS, Sanctions by the Numbers: 2025 Year in Review, January 2026; US Department of the Treasury — OFAC Recent Actions and press releases; Corporate Compliance Insights, March 2026; GAO-25-107079, September 2025

The SDN List in 2026 operates as the world’s most consequential financial blacklist, and its expansion under the second Trump administration reflects a sharp reorientation of priorities. Where the Biden years were dominated by Russia-related designations following the 2022 Ukraine invasion, 2025’s top priority category was counternarcotics — the Trump administration’s February 2025 designation of major cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations was unprecedented, exposing companies and financial institutions operating in Latin America to criminal and civil liability simply for operating in markets where these groups play economic roles, licit or otherwise. The designation of 263 Chinese entities on the BIS Entity List in 2024 — and the continued use of secondary sanctions against Chinese banks and refineries for purchasing Iranian and Russian oil — represents the most significant escalation of US economic measures targeting Chinese commercial interests since the trade war began.

What makes the January 10, 2025 Russia energy action a landmark moment is its breadth. Treasury’s simultaneous designation of Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegas, and over 180 shadow fleet vessels in a single action triggered immediate ripple effects across the global oil market: Chinese and Indian refineries canceled orders of Russian crude, oil payments from Chinese banks were delayed or suspended, and Russian oil cargoes were left stranded at sea with no buyers. The subsequent October 2025 designations of Rosneft and Lukoil — the two largest companies in Russia’s oil sector — marked the first direct punitive measures against Russia under the Trump administration after months of ceasefire negotiations, signaling that diplomatic patience had limits. These four Russian oil company designations collectively targeted a sector representing a primary source of Russia’s war financing.

OFAC Enforcement Actions & Penalties in the US 2026

OFAC’s enforcement record in 2025 was the most impactful in dollar terms since the Binance settlement in 2023, and the early months of 2026 show no signs of the agency easing its foot off the accelerator.

Source: Sidley Austin LLP, Five Key Takeaways from 2025 OFAC Enforcement, February 2026; Foley Hoag, Lessons from the First Four OFAC Enforcement Actions, July 2025; Polixis, OFAC 2025 Enforcement Year in Review, December 2025; Corporate Compliance Insights, State of OFAC Sanctions Enforcement 2025–26, March 2026; OFAC Civil Penalties and Enforcement Information pages (ofac.treasury.gov)

2025 was a watershed year for OFAC enforcement, and the numbers make the story obvious: total penalties jumped more than five-fold compared to 2024, from $49 million to over $265 million. The GVA Capital case is the defining enforcement action of the cycle — a Silicon Valley venture capital firm fined the statutory maximum of nearly $216 million for continuing to manage a US investment on behalf of sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov for three years after his designation. OFAC found the conduct “willful” based on evidence that senior management had actual knowledge of Kerimov’s continued interest in the investment, and it rejected GVA’s reliance on a legal opinion that the investment structure did not technically trigger the SDN 50% ownership rule. The message OFAC sent was unambiguous: look past corporate structure to economic reality, or face the maximum statutory penalty. The fact that 57% of all 2025 enforcement actions involved Russia-related violations shows that regardless of whatever diplomatic signaling the Trump administration was sending about potential Ukraine peace deals, OFAC kept enforcing Russia sanctions with full intensity throughout the year.

The IMG Academy case in February 2026 introduced a striking new dimension: OFAC penalized a Florida school and sports training facility for receiving tuition payments that had passed through third parties connected to Mexican cartel-related SDN-listed individuals. This was OFAC’s explicit warning that sanctions risk applies to “predominantly domestic” businesses — organizations that never considered themselves international actors but happened to accept payments that flowed through cartel-linked networks. Combined with the strict liability standard that requires no proof of intent for civil penalties, this means any US business that accepts payment without rigorous counterparty screening is exposed. In 2026, that exposure is growing, not shrinking.

US Sanctions on Russia — Full Statistics in the US 2026

Russia sanctions represent the largest, most expensive, and most geopolitically consequential US sanctions program ever deployed against a major economy. The data as of April 2026 reveals both enormous scale and the limits of economic coercion.

Source: GAO-25-107079, Russia Sanctions and Export Controls, September 2025; Atlantic Council Russia Sanctions Database, February 2026; US Department of the Treasury press releases; Council on Foreign Relations, October 2025; House of Commons Library, Sanctions Against Russia, April 2026; Anadolu Agency, Four Years of War: Counting Russia’s Costs, February 2026; Kyiv School of Economics 2025 report

The Russia sanctions data through April 2026 is best understood as a story of enormous cumulative impact running up against the resilience of a wartime economy with deep buffers. On one side of the ledger: $300 billion in frozen sovereign assets, 80% of Russian banking sector assets touched by restrictions, Gazprom recording back-to-back annual losses for the first time since 1999, Russia’s oil revenues down 22% in 2025, and an IMF growth forecast downgraded to just 0.6% for 2025 after the October Rosneft and Lukoil designations. Russia itself acknowledged these pressures when its industry ministry asked companies to identify which sanctions they most wanted lifted during ceasefire talks — the answer was energy and payment systems, the exact categories where US pressure has been most concentrated. The cumulative financial damage estimate of over $1 trillion when all factors are aggregated — frozen reserves, foregone energy revenue, equipment losses, infrastructure costs, and constrained borrowing — puts the economic scale of this sanctions program in sobering perspective.

On the other side: Russia’s GDP grew 3.6% in 2024 and the economy did not collapse. The GAO’s September 2025 report found no statistically significant GDP impact in 2023 and 2024 beyond what baseline forecasts would have predicted, despite record-breaking designation volumes. Russia redirected its oil exports through a shadow fleet costing over $10 billion to assemble, rerouted trade through China, India, Turkey, and other non-sanctioning countries, and ran its economy on a wartime fiscal model that prioritized military output over civilian consumption. The 22% drop in oil revenues in 2025 is significant — but Russia entered the war with substantial National Wealth Fund reserves that have been used to buffer the fiscal gap. The key variable going into 2026 and beyond is whether those buffers are exhausted and whether secondary sanctions targeting China and India can truly disrupt the rerouted revenue flows that have kept Russia economically afloat.

US Sanctions on Iran — Full Statistics 2026

Iran sanctions represent the longest continuously active US comprehensive sanctions program — now entering its 47th year — and the most aggressively prosecuted program under the current administration.

Source: US Department of State, Iran Sanctions page (state.gov/iran-sanctions), accessed April 18, 2026; US Department of the Treasury press releases; Wikipedia — United States Sanctions Against Iran; Middle East Forum, Iran Economic Crisis Review, December 2025; Iran International, January 2026; FDD Analysis, March 2025; Clingendael, Iran Strategic Predicament, 2025

The Iran sanctions picture in 2026 is one of the sharpest examples of what an intensive US maximum pressure campaign can do to a mid-sized economy — and also one of the sharpest illustrations of the limits of even the most aggressive sanctions enforcement. On the damage side, the numbers are striking: the rial trading at 1,039,000 per US dollar by March 2026 — less than half its value just nine months earlier — represents a currency collapse of extraordinary speed. 49% inflation in 2025 is more than double the rate Iran experienced even during the devastating 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war, by the Middle East Forum’s own historical comparison. The failure of one of Iran’s largest banks in December 2025, cited by Treasury Secretary Bessent as the “grand culmination” of the maximum pressure campaign, confirms that the financial system is under genuine structural stress. The monthly minimum wage falling to roughly $100 by end-2025 — from $180 at the start of the year — means the human cost of the sanctions is landing squarely on ordinary Iranians.

Yet Iran continues to sell 1.38 million barrels per day of oil to China — down only 7% from 2024 despite the most aggressive US sanctions enforcement in years. The shadow fleet, discounts of up to $17 per barrel, and the use of opaque trading networks through the UAE, Malaysia, and Singapore have kept Iranian crude moving. The Trump administration’s response has been to escalate: designating Chinese “teapot” refineries directly, authorizing tariffs on countries trading with Iran, and sanctioning Zarrab’s LPG network and scores of oil traders every single month. This escalatory cycle — sanctions, evasion, more sanctions — defines the structural challenge of Iran sanctions enforcement in 2026 and shows no signs of reaching a decisive resolution on either side.

US Sanctions Economic & Humanitarian Impact 2026

Beyond the enforcement statistics and designation numbers, US sanctions carry measurable economic and humanitarian consequences that affect millions of civilians, global trade flows, and allied economies.

Source: GAO-25-107079, September 2025; Atlantic Council Russia Sanctions Database, 2026; Kyiv School of Economics 2025 report; Anadolu Agency, February 2026; The Lancet / CEPR 2025 study; Middle East Forum, December 2025; House of Commons Library, April 2026; Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), 2025; Congress.gov CRS

The economic impact of US sanctions in 2026 defies simple narratives in both directions. Sanctions advocates can point to Iran’s 49% inflation, a collapsing rial, a failed major bank, and a Russian economy whose GDP growth forecast has been slashed to 0.6% after oil company designations, with cumulative financial damage estimated at over $1 trillion. Sanctions skeptics can point to Russia’s 3.6% GDP growth in 2024, Iran still exporting 1.38 million barrels per day of oil to China, and the $10+ billion Russia invested in building a shadow fleet infrastructure that continues to function. Both sets of facts are accurate, and that tension is the central reality of sanctions policy: they impose real costs but rarely achieve the swift capitulation that proponents sometimes project.

The humanitarian dimension is impossible to separate from the policy analysis. The 2025 Lancet study — funded by the Center for Economic and Policy Research — estimated that unilateral sanctions from all parties were associated with up to 564,258 deaths annually between 1971 and 2021. Iran’s $100 monthly minimum wage and food price inflation exceeding 100% in some categories by early 2026 demonstrate that the economic pain is landing hardest on working-class Iranians who have no role in their government’s nuclear or foreign policy decisions. The Turkey export drop of 28% and the US secondary tariff on India illustrate that the economic consequences of US sanctions don’t stop at the borders of the targeted country — they ripple through global trade networks, affecting allied nations, developing economies, and energy markets worldwide. For policymakers, businesses, and compliance professionals, understanding these second and third-order effects is increasingly as important as understanding the primary sanctions rules themselves.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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