Michael Meadon
Our latest global sanctions report takes a deep dive into the expected changes in sanctions inflation and other mega-trends that are set to shape the risk landscape this year.
Our latest Global Sanctions Index (GSI) update, which draws on data to March 2025, delivers a concise and insightful snapshot of worldwide sanctions and how expected changes could affect you.
The report concludes that uncertainty will be a defining characteristic of the sanctions landscape for the foreseeable future. It also suggests that sanctions inflation could end over the course of 2025, but that a range of other global mega-trends – including uncertainty – appear “set to continue or even intensify”.
The GSI was launched in 2022 and draws attention to the phenomenon of sanctions inflation – the sustained and rapid increase in the number of sanctioned persons globally – to help you better understand the impact of sanctions growth.
Why do potential changes in the sanctions landscape matter? Because their impact can be substantial, affecting your organisation in different ways – from rising compliance costs to the need for specialised knowledge, and more.
The key takeaway numbers
The key takeaway numbers to note (as at March 2025) are:
- There are just under 80,000 total sanctioned persons globally[1].
- Annual sanctions inflation is 17.1%, down from an 18.9% annual rate in March last year.
- The GSI has reached a value of 446, a 446% increase since the base date of January 2017.
In addition to these headline numbers, our report also provides more detail about movements relating to selected sub-indices and notes that “a consistent trend evident across several sanctions authorities is inflation that is both modest and slowing relative to one year ago.”
That said, a range of other “mega-trends” that LSEG tracks seem set to continue or even intensify.
Whilst we may see the end of sanctions inflation sometime this year, many of the global mega-trends we have highlighted appear set to continue or even intensify.
LSEG report – The Global Sanctions Index (GSI): A lens on worldwide sanctions
What are the global mega-trends?
Global mega-trends matter, because they heavily impact the sanctions landscape, with knock-on effects for your compliance teams:
Our report identifies six of these mega-trends:
- Hyperinflation:
This is the rapid and ongoing increase in the number of sanctioned persons over time.
- Divergence:
Divergence refers to the breakdown of any global consensus around sanctions, the rise of autonomous sanctions, and increased conflict-of-laws situations.
- Complexity:
Complexity around sanctions orders often requires deep specialist knowledge.
Extra-territoriality:
This refers to an expanded regulatory scope via secondary sanctions risk.
- Privatisation:
The onus of sanctions target identification has shifted from governments to the private sector, which often results in broad narrative statements and categories (such as entities, securities or places) rather than explicitly named persons.
- Uncertainty:
We identified this new mega-trend in 2025, as it is becoming increasingly clear that global uncertainty surrounding sanctions is rising.
Hyper-divergence
One mega-trend that shows the potential to intensify is divergence. The consensus around sanctions that existed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States has steadily declined, with divergent views becoming more and more evident.
This divergence can most clearly be seen by looking at consensus-based UN sanctions as a percentage of all sanctions. The all-time low of 1.25% reached in March 2025 highlights the overwhelming move away from a consensus-based approach.
While divergence has been a trend for several years, we may now be entering a period of hyper-divergence, especially given that the future of American sanctions on Russia is “uncertain at best”, while several other sanctions bodies, including those in the EU and UK have strengthened both sanctions and enforcement against Russia.
If diverging views grow more pronounced, we could see the mega-trend of divergence morph into a new trend – hyper-divergence. Watch this space.
To find out more about changing sanctions, and how these changes impact your organisation, read the full report here.
About the GSI
The Global Sanctions Inflation (GSI) Index takes its base as January 2017 (=100) and includes every explicit sanctions regime tracked by LSEG World-Check Risk Intelligence data, covering all keywords with the ‘sanctions’ keyword type. This means that implicit sanctions, for example, sanctions created by the OFAC 50% rule, are entirely excluded from this analysis. The sanctions regimes tracked are very broad. The consequences or severity of the sanctions are not considered.
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