Obtaining a license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is one of the primary tools for authorizing transactions that would otherwise be prohibited under U.S. sanctions law. OFAC licenses may be required to unblock frozen assets, complete contracts, pay legal fees, sell property, or carry out other transactions involving sanctioned persons or certain jurisdictions.

In practice, applicants frequently encounter prolonged delays. When an OFAC license delay stretches to a year or beyond, the commercial and legal stakes grow quickly. That raises a practical question: what, if anything, can be done to move the process forward?

How Long Does OFAC Take to Review a License Application?

Unlike many administrative processes, U.S. sanctions law sets no specific deadline by which OFAC must act on a license application. The OFAC Licensing Division reviews each submission individually, and processing time depends on a range of factors:

• the complexity of the proposed transaction;
• the applicable sanctions program (Russia, Iran, Syria, and others);
• the ownership structure of the parties involved;
• the need for interagency coordination;
• the broader political context.

In practice, even relatively straightforward applications can take close to a year to resolve, while complex cases may require 12 to 18 months or more. Further delays can arise when OFAC issues a request for additional information or documentation, effectively pausing the review until the applicant responds.

Many applications also require coordination with other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of State. That interagency process can add significant time before a final decision is reached.

What to Do When the Review Is Taking Too Long

When an OFAC license delay becomes a problem, applicants are not simply left to wait. Several practical tools may help move the process forward.

The first is a status inquiry. Submitting a formal request asking OFAC where things stand will not guarantee faster action, but it confirms that the application is active and helps identify any outstanding questions on the agency’s end.

The second tool is supplemental documentation. Delays sometimes reflect gaps in the original submission: insufficient detail about ownership structures, the economic purpose of the transaction, or the applicant’s sanctions compliance framework. Providing that information proactively can help OFAC reach its conclusions more quickly.

The third option is filing an amendment to the original application. This makes sense when the initial submission was rushed, imprecise, or lacked adequate factual support and legal analysis, or when circumstances have materially changed since the application was filed.

A carefully prepared application that goes beyond a factual narrative to include a legal analysis of the applicable sanctions framework and a reasoned argument for why OFAC should grant the license in this particular case consistently produces better outcomes than one that simply describes the transaction.

Can You Go to Court to Speed Up an OFAC License Decision?

In some cases, applicants consider going to federal court to address an OFAC license delay. That path is available under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The most common legal basis is a claim of unreasonable delay. Under the APA, federal courts have the authority to compel an agency to act when a matter has been pending for an unreasonably long time.

In evaluating such claims, courts apply the framework established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Telecommunications Research & Action Center v. FCC (1984) – known as the TRAC test. The key factors include whether the delay is consistent with a rule of reason, given the complexity of the matter, the effect of expediting one case on the agency’s other priorities, and the nature and extent of the harm the applicant is suffering as a result of the delay.

An important threshold point: what a court can do in this context is order OFAC to make a decision: to approve the application or deny it. The court cannot dictate what that decision should be. The substance of the licensing determination remains entirely within OFAC’s discretion.

That said, the practical track record of these cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia tells a revealing story. In the majority of instances, OFAC issues its decision within weeks of being served with the complaint, without the case ever reaching a judicial review. That is, in most cases, the real value of a delay lawsuit: not a judgment from the court, but the signal the lawsuit sends to the agency. For OFAC, a filed complaint is a clear indication that the applicant is serious and that continued inaction carries real legal consequences.

Not every OFAC license delay warrants immediate litigation. Courts afford federal agencies, particularly in matters touching on national security and foreign policy, considerable deference. And even when the goal is not a court ruling but simply applying pressure, building a properly documented legal case requires real effort and expense.

Still, when significant assets are frozen and the delay shows no sign of resolution, filing suit may be the step that finally moves things forward.

Conclusion

Obtaining an OFAC license is rarely a quick process. Even in relatively straightforward cases, an OFAC license delay of close to a year is common, and complex matters can take considerably longer.

That said, applicants are not without recourse. The likelihood of a faster resolution improves significantly when:

• the application is prepared with care from the outset, presenting not just the facts but a legal analysis of the applicable sanctions framework and a well-reasoned argument for why OFAC should grant the license in this case;
• the ownership structure and economic rationale are clearly set out;
• any OFAC requests for additional information are handled promptly and with legal precision;
• communication with the Licensing Division is consistent and professional.

Judicial intervention remains an option, particularly when the amounts at stake are substantial and the delay has become clearly unreasonable. In practice, the act of filing suit alone is often enough to prompt OFAC to act, making this tool more effective in practice than it might appear on paper.

Ultimately, how quickly OFAC resolves a license application depends in large part on the quality of the submission and the strategy behind it. That is why, in complex sanctions matters, retaining experienced sanctions counsel at the earliest possible stage consistently pays off.