Canada · Sanctions

Canada sanctions regulations, one by one

Canada makes sanctions in several separate instruments. Each one has its own legal basis, its own schedule of listed persons and its own date of last load. This page lists every Canadian instrument we hold, so you can see what each one covers.

Counts as of 2026-10-12. Active means the record is currently in force on the list we hold.

The four legal bases

Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA). SEMA lets the Governor in Council make country-specific regulations that freeze the property of listed persons and ban dealings with them. Each country regulation has a schedule that names the people and entities it covers. See the SEMA guide.

Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (JVCFOA). The Magnitsky law. It works like SEMA but targets foreign nationals responsible for gross human rights violations or significant corruption. See the JVCFOA guide.

United Nations Act. The Act that brings UN Security Council decisions into Canadian law by regulation. The regulations list the persons each decision covers. See the United Nations Act guide.

Criminal Code, listed terrorist entities. Under the Criminal Code, the federal government can list entities it has reasonable grounds to believe are involved in terrorism. Listing carries its own offences and freezing duties. See the Criminal Code listing guide.

The Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (FACFOA) sits alongside these. Its regulations are shown in the last table, with a note on how the dataset classifies them.

The consolidated list is administrative. The regulation schedules are the law.

The consolidated sanctions list is a compilation that Global Affairs Canada publishes for convenience. It brings together persons from the regulation schedules into one searchable file. It is not the legal text. A person is listed under a Canadian sanctions regime only when the regulation schedule names them, and the schedule as published in the Canada Gazette and on the Justice Laws Website is the authority. Where the two differ, the schedule governs. Confirm every match against the regulation before you act on it.

Special Economic Measures Act: 17 country regulations

The dataset holds 17 SEMA country regulations, each with its own schedule, and one SEMA order (the seizure of an aircraft). The consolidated list tags 18 regime labels, one more than the regulations, because it also carries a separate South Sudan tag that has no schedule of its own in the data.

The Russia regulation carries more rows than any other. Some of its persons are also in the consolidated list below, so do not add the two together.

Consolidated sanctions lists (administrative)

These two lists are compilations. The first covers every SEMA regime and so repeats persons from the regulation schedules above. The second covers only the Russia autonomous measures. Read them as indexes, and read the regulation for the legal position.

JVCFOA (Magnitsky law)

One regulation, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Regulations. Its schedule names foreign nationals listed under the Act.

United Nations Act

The data holds the regulations implementing UN Security Council resolutions on the suppression of terrorism. It does not yet hold every other regulation made under the United Nations Act, so this table may be incomplete for that Act.

Criminal Code listed terrorist entities

A list of entities, not a regulation. Listing is made under the Criminal Code, and the list is published by Public Safety Canada.

Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (FACFOA)

Regulations for named countries. The Ukraine regulation is held as a sanctions list. The Tunisia and Ukraine schedules are indexed as politically exposed person (PEP) lists in the dataset, so they carry a PEP tag there even though they come from the freezing regulations.

Related

• Canadian coverage
• Canada sanctions list (SEMA and Magnitsky) explained
• Consolidated sanctions dataset
• FINTRAC reporting

Counts come from the Crown Intelligence dataset as of 2026-10-12. Crown Intelligence is not affiliated with the Government of Canada. This page is general information, not legal advice.