Description
Full-text search of the OpenSanctions entity graph: find sanctioned people and companies, politically exposed persons (PEPs), debarred suppliers, wanted persons and crime-linked entities by name or free text, with country, topic, dataset and property filters and faceted counts. Cheaper than /match because it ranks rather than scores and returns no per-match explanation — use it to explore, to power a user-facing search box, or when a human will read the hits; use /match when a screening decision needs a score and a threshold. Append the dataset scope as a path segment: /search/default searches everything, /search/sanctions only sanctions lists, /search/peps only PEP registers.
Parameters
{
"properties": {
"changed_since": {
"description": "Only entities updated since this ISO date/time.",
"pattern": "^\\\\d{4}-\\\\d{2}-\\\\d{2}(T\\\\d{2}(:\\\\d{2}(:\\\\d{2})?)?)?$",
"type": "string"
},
"countries": {
"description": "Filter by ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes, e.g. ru, ir.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"dataset": {
"default": "default",
"description": "Dataset or collection to search, appended as a path segment. Use default, sanctions, peps, debarment, crime, or a single source dataset such as us_ofac_sdn. List the options with GET /catalog.",
"type": "string",
"x-parameter-location": "path"
},
"datasets": {
"description": "Filter by dataset name, respecting filter_op.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"exclude_dataset": {
"description": "Remove these datasets from the search scope.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"exclude_schema": {
"description": "Remove these entity types from the results.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"facets": {
"default": [
"countries",
"topics",
"datasets"
],
"description": "Which facet counts to include in the response.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"filter": {
"description": "Filter on a specific entity property with the syntax field:value, e.g. birthDate:1952-10-07 or programId:UKR.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"filter_op": {
"description": "How multiple filters on the SAME field combine.",
"enum": [
"AND",
"OR"
],
"type": "string"
},
"fuzzy": {
"default": false,
"description": "Allow fuzzy query syntax in q.",
"type": "boolean"
},
"include_dataset": {
"description": "Restrict the search scope to these datasets within the path scope.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"limit": {
"default": 10,
"description": "Number of results to return.",
"maximum": 500,
"type": "integer"
},
"offset": {
"default": 0,
"description": "Start at this result offset. The API refuses to page beyond 9499.",
"maximum": 9499,
"type": "integer"
},
"q": {
"default": "",
"description": "Query text — a person or company name, or any free text.",
"type": "string"
},
"schema": {
"default": "Thing",
"description": "Entity type that may match, e.g. Person, Company, Organization, LegalEntity, Vessel, Airplane. Thing matches all of them.",
"type": "string"
},
"simple": {
"default": false,
"description": "Use the simplified query syntax intended for user-facing search boxes.",
"type": "boolean"
},
"sort": {
"description": "Sorting criteria, e.g. first_seen:desc. Default is relevance.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
},
"topics": {
"description": "Filter by entity topic, e.g. sanction, role.pep, crime, debarment, wanted.",
"items": {
"type": "string"
},
"type": "array"
}
},
"required": [
"dataset"
],
"type": "object"
}
Example response
{
"facets": {
"countries": {
"label": "Countries",
"values": [
{
"count": 42,
"label": "Russia",
"name": "ru"
}
]
},
"topics": {
"label": "Topics",
"values": [
{
"count": 42,
"label": "Politician",
"name": "role.pep"
}
]
}
},
"limit": 10,
"offset": 0,
"results": [
{
"caption": "Vladimir Putin",
"datasets": [
"us_ofac_sdn"
],
"first_seen": "2026-01-01T12:00:00Z",
"id": "Q7747",
"last_change": "2026-01-01T12:00:00Z",
"last_seen": "2026-01-01T12:00:00Z",
"properties": {
"country": [
"ru"
],
"name": [
"Vladimir Putin"
],
"topics": [
"role.pep",
"sanction"
]
},
"referents": [
"ofac-1234"
],
"schema": "Person",
"target": true
}
],
"total": {
"relation": "eq",
"value": 1
}
}
