# Sanctions Check Before You Pay

> Sanctions Check Before You Pay is a paid API for AI agents from sanctions.nsgoods.org, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-25).

Screens the payee addresses of an x402 payment endpoint against OFAC, UN, EU, and UK sanctions lists before payment is made, returning a signed per-payee and overall verdict.

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://sanctions.nsgoods.org/screen-url?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-25
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/sanctions-check-before-you-pay-c2d659ad
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_4YrHwWZgGmfAwcBEKQ-Di

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability sanctions-check-before-you-pay-c2d659ad
```

Example prompt: Before we pay that x402 endpoint at https://api.example.com/some-service, can you run a sanctions check on all its payTo addresses against OFAC, UN, EU, and UK lists and tell me if it's safe to proceed?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to perform pre-payment sanctions due diligence specifically on x402 protocol payment endpoints — it handles the full workflow of fetching the x402 quote, extracting all payTo addresses across all blockchain networks, and screening them against four major sanctions regimes (OFAC, UN, EU, UK) in a single signed call. Prefer this over general wallet screening when the payment recipient is expressed as an x402 URL rather than a known wallet address, or when you need a cryptographically signed audit trail of the screening result tied to a specific payment quote.

## Known failure modes

- 400 with charged:false if the URL is not a valid x402 endpoint or returns a malformed 402 response
- 400 if the URL is not HTTPS or is otherwise invalid
- Review verdict (not denial) when one or more sanctions lists are temporarily unavailable
- Timeout or 5xx if the target x402 endpoint is unreachable
- No charge is ever applied on error responses

## How this service works

Use this before an AI agent pays an x402 endpoint: give the endpoint URL, we read its own 402 quote, pull every payTo (all networks) and screen each against OFAC, UN, EU and UK lists. Signed per-payee and overall verdict: deny on an OFAC match, review on a UN/EU/UK match or an unavailable list, clean otherwise. $0.01 in USDC on Base or Solana. A bad, unreachable or non-x402 URL returns 400, 422 or 502, not charged. Free preview: GET /screen-url/preview

## Output

A signed JSON object containing the screened URL, an overall verdict (deny, review, or clean), an array of per-payee results with their addresses and individual verdicts, a signature from the screener, the signing key identifier, the SHA256 of the x402 quote that was screened, and a list_health object indicating the availability status of each sanctions list (OFAC, UN, EU, UK). Verdict is 'deny' on an OFAC match, 'review' on UN/EU/UK match or unavailable list, and 'clean' if all payees pass all available lists.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET",
      "HEAD",
      "DELETE"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "url"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "url": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "https x402 endpoint URL to screen the payee of."
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "url",
      "verdict",
      "payees",
      "signed_by",
      "signature"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "url": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "payees": {
       "type": "array"
      },
      "verdict": {
       "enum": [
        "deny",
        "review",
        "clean"
       ],
       "type": "string"
      },
      "signature": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "signed_by": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "list_health": {
       "type": "object"
      },
      "quote_sha256": {
       "type": "string"
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/sanctions-check-before-you-pay-c2d659ad/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from sanctions.nsgoods.org](https://www.zero.xyz/host/sanctions.nsgoods.org/llms.txt)