Sanctions 2026 Comparisons

During the past 12 months, Australia’s focus on sanctions has been primarily on Russia, in response to the conflict with Ukraine and against North Korea, to target cybercrime and missile development.

The Australian Government is utilising many aspects of the sanctions law, including introducing new frameworks, general permits and adjusting the Oil Price Cap (OPC). However, notable aspects remain underutilised, including the Magnitsky-style thematic cyber sanctions framework.

The primary regulator, the Australian Sanctions Office (ASO), has maintained a co-operative and educative regulatory approach. Throughout 2026, the ASO has released advisory and guidance notes on a variety of topics and conducted outreach sessions.

There is an increasingly strong focus on enforcement and compliance, suggesting that the ASO may soon switch into a more proactive role. Enforcement action will likely be in conjunction with other Australian agencies, including the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Border Force (ABF) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

This may be supported by at least one of the ASO’s sanctions matters being referred to the AFP; however, the outcome of this case and whether it is an isolated enforcement action remains to be seen.

Statistics on the Use of Sanctions

As of July 2026, approximately 3,838 primary designations were active under Australian sanctions regimes according to the ASO Consolidated List.

Comparisons between prior years have been impeded by certain changes to the Consolidated List, renewal of 336 designated entities under the UNSC sanctions related to the 1267 (ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida) Committee and the introduction of a separate sanctions framework for Vessels.

Nevertheless, observations can be made from a close examination of the Consolidated List, as follows.

• Sanctions have been imposed against 2,537 individuals, 1,039 entities and 262 vessels.
• The sheer number of active sanctions has steadily increased year-on-year, with there being 3,213 designations in July 2025 and 3,052 in July 2024. Approximately 25% of the active sanctions were imposed within the first six months of 2026; however, this figure may be misleading due to the renewal of sanctions and the transposition of others between frameworks.
• Of the 262 vessels that have been designated, all but one are Russian and the remainder is Iranian.
• The focus of Australia’s sanctions regime continues to be Russia, with 25.3% of active sanctions imposed under the Russian sanctions framework and the overwhelming majority of sanctions under the vessels sanctions framework (making up 6.8% of active sanctions) directed towards Russian vessels. This means over 32% of active sanctions are directed towards Russia, up from 20.1% as of July 2025.
• Relatedly, 21.9% of sanctions are imposed under the Ukraine country framework, meaning the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the likely context from which Australian sanctions are arising (53.9%). This is notable from July 2025 (46.3% active sanctions).
• There continues to be a steady but minimal use of Magnitsky-style sanction instruments since the introduction of the Autonomous Sanctions Amendment (Magnitsky-style and Other Thematic Sanctions) Regulations 2021 (Cth) (the “Magnitsky-style Regulations”) in December 2021, with Australia incrementally using these powers more throughout 2024, with five of the nine instruments being issued between November 2023 and June 2024. While there is a constant (but slow) use of the cyber and human rights frameworks, there continues to be a notable drop-off in any usage in relation to corruption, with the last set of still-in-force corruption sanctions dating back to 2022.

Statistics on Permits

Statistics on reports, contraventions, enforcement actions and permits remain undisclosed to the general public. In July 2021, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) released a “Sanctions Regulator Performance – Self-Assessment Report”, disclosing that in 2020–21, 55 permit applications were finalised (in which the ASO assessed that a sanctions permit was required).

On 5 December 2025, DFAT issued a new permit to accompany the launch of the new Afghanistan sanctions framework. This permit authorises the provision of humanitarian assistance and other activities to support basic human needs in Afghanistan.

Co-Ordinated Sanctions

Australia continues to impose sanctions in co-ordination with friendly countries, including the UK, the USA and Canada. For example, Australia has consistently acted in conjunction with other countries in the imposition of Magnitsky-style human rights sanctions against Israeli individuals and entities for settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as recent as June 2026.

Court Proceedings

No cases in terms of contractual law or other administrative decisions were rendered.

However, 2026 did feature an important case, an appeal decision by the High Court of Australia in Deripaska v Minister for Foreign Affairs, important to administrative law. In short, the High Court held that Australian sanctions law could not prohibit a designated person from engaging a lawyer to assist in challenging the designation or the associated law. The precise parameters of this implied exclusion will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis, but it does provide an important pathway for those designated to receive legal advice and protection for the lawyers who provide it. See 2.3.2 Provision of Legal Services and 3.1 Significant Court Decisions or Legal Developments for further details.

Enforcement Action

There has been only one charge during this 2025 to 2026 period. This reflects the broad trend in Australia not to prosecute sanctions violations. This case concerned an individual who is a director of a remittance company alleged to have contravened Australian sanctions by transferring funds to an Iranian bank (See 2.2.4 Criminal Enforcement Action). It is unclear if this case is still ongoing.

This trend has been ongoing for some time. As of 15 November 2024, it was confirmed that the AFP had four active sanctions investigations and that DFAT had 21 sanctions compliance matters under review, yet no cases were reported in the CDPP 2025 Annual Report related to the sanctions legislation. No further reporting on investigations or other enforcement action has occurred to date. In fact, there is a distinct lack of charges reported by the AFP or the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions.

However, this charge in 2025 may signal a broader escalation in regulatory and sanctions enforcement action. Notably arising from this case, there has been an enforcement effort targeting remittance services with the ASO issuing “a number of” warning letters to remittance companies in Australia. Warning letters are typically the first port of call for the ASO for suspected or low-risk breaches, suggesting the ASO may have already issued section 19 notices and that this charge arose from a broader review of this industry.

Sanctions can be imposed on individuals, regardless of industry, which consequently affects how other individuals and entities interact with those designated. Financial industries are particularly affected by sanctions, given the requirement to freeze the assets of designated individuals. As noted before, it appears that the AFP and ASO are focusing particularly on remittance services, sending warning letters to multiple companies.

Australian sanctions can be targeted towards specific industries. By way of example:

• the sanctions concerning Syria have an express focus on the oil and gas industry or the petrochemical industry; and
• the sanctions concerning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) expressly sanction any service that assists with or is in relation to an “extractive or related industry”.

Court decisions in 2024 have shone a spotlight on the application of Australian sanctions on the resources (coal, alumina and bauxite) and transport industries. The ramifications may be felt across many global industries with complex, intersecting operations.

Finally, with the new amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) rules, governance obligations related to sanctions are expanding to more industries, including the real estate and legal professions.

DFAT is broadly responsible for administering and enforcing the sanctions. To this end, DFAT established the ASO on 1 January 2022 to sit within DFAT’s Regulatory Legal Division in the Security, Legal and Consular Group. The ASO is the Australian government’s sanctions regulator.

As the regulator, the ASO:

• provides guidance on Australian sanctions law to regulated entities and to the public, government and relevant parties;
• processes applications for and issues, sanctions permits (see 2.3 Licensing);
• works with the public to promote compliance and help prevent breaches;
• works in partnership with other government agencies to monitor compliance; and
• supports corrective and enforcement action by law enforcement agencies in cases of suspected non-compliance (see 2.2 Enforcement).

There are no continuous reporting obligations under Australian sanctions law. However, there are record-keeping obligations and certain government officials have information-gathering powers.

Record-Keeping Obligations

Two types of records must be retained, as follows.

• Any records or documents relating to an application must be retained for five years by the applicant. Importantly, this obligation remains even if the permit is not granted. The five years begin from the date the permit was granted or, if it was refused, from the date the application was made.
• Any records or documents relating to the person’s compliance with any conditions of the permit must be retained for five years, beginning on the last day on which an action to which the permit relates was done.

Information-Gathering Powers

A “CEO of a designated Commonwealth entity” can require a person to give information or documents to determine compliance with a sanction law. A designated Commonwealth entity includes DFAT, the Department of Defence, the Australian Customs Service and AUSTRAC. These are called section 19 notices. The section 19 notice will specify the information and/or documents sought and the timing and manner in which the notice must be complied with.

Information cannot be withheld on the basis that its provision will be self-incriminating. However, neither the information given ‒ nor the giving of the document ‒ is admissible as evidence against the individual in any criminal proceedings or in any proceedings that would expose the individual to a penalty, apart from proceedings for:

• providing false or misleading information given in connection with a sanction law; or
• failing to comply with the requirement to provide information or documents.

Failing to comply with the requirement is a criminal offence, punishable by up to 12 months’ imprisonment.

Court Decisions

The three most significant court decisions or legal developments in Australia are:

• Alexander Abramov v Minister for Foreign Affairs (No 2) (2023), which challenged the designation of an individual and confirmed that sanctions could be imposed for past actions that have been discontinued but also provided further insight into the administrative process of sanction-making ‒ this decision, in turn, led to the Australian government passing legislation to reflect the outcome of this decision and retrospectively validate past sanction decisions; and
• Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd v Queensland Alumina Ltd (2024) FCA 43, which was Australia’s first case examining the sanctions regimes in the context of commercial contracts/force majeure and confirmed the broad scope of sanction provisions (see 6.1 Force Majeure for further details). Deripaska v Minister for Foreign Affairs [2026] HCA 14, which confronted the question of whether a sanctions instrument could deny a designated person access to legal services to advise on the availability of (or lack thereof) judicial review under administrative law or the constitution. By unanimous decision, the High Court held that the sanctions legislative instruments could be read down to exclude their constitutionally invalid operations and allow designated persons to obtain legal advice for judicial review proceedings in relation to their designation and that such services did not require a ministerial permit. Importantly, this therefore allows lawyers to provide these services without reliance on a permit that must be renewed every two years.

Legal Developments

The Australian Government has introduced new sanctions frameworks, including the Afghanistan sanctions framework, allowing the Minister to impose sanctions under a new set of criteria, in conjunction with or independently of the UNSC sanctions.

Another significant and recent legal development in relation to Australian sanctions laws is the new AML/CTF regime’s requirement for reporting entities to develop, maintain and comply with policies to ensure they do not contravene targeted financial sanctions obligations.

Under the new regime, reporting entities are required to reasonably establish that a customer, beneficial owner of a customer or person acting on behalf of a customer, is not designated for targeted financial sanctions prior to providing a designated service to that customer. Reporting entities will also be subject to an ongoing requirement to monitor existing customers to check whether they have become designated for targeted financial sanctions or have breached Australian sanctions laws.

The Australian Government is actively considering reforms to sanctions laws “to ensure they are fit for purpose and easier to understand”.

According to DFAT’s website, the Australian Government is currently considering proposed reforms and drafting legislative and regulatory amendments ahead of the Autonomous Sanctions Regulations 2011 sunsetting on 1 October 2027. These reforms are likely based on the reports received from at least four reviews that addressed the Australian sanctions regimes:

• DFAT’s review that commenced in January 2023 and concluded on 30 October 2024, titled ‘Review of Australia’s Autonomous Sanctions Framework’;
• the Defence and Trade References Committee’s review that commenced in March 2024 and concluded in September 2024, titled "Australian Support for Ukraine", September 2024;
• the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Reference Committee’s review that commenced in July 2024 and concluded in February 2025, titled "Australia’s sanctions regime"; and
• the review by the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Reference Committee that commenced in December 2024 and concluded in March 2025, titled "Australia’s thematic sanctions framework: A legislated review of the operation of the Autonomous Sanctions Amendment (Magnitsky-style and other Thematic Sanctions) Act 2021".

All in all, this patchwork of reviews presents a range of stakeholders’ views on Australia’s sanctions regimes. It provides a starting point for an array of legal and regulatory developments. However, there is no draft legislation on the table. The Sanctions Act, however, is due to sunset on 1 October 2027, which is fast approaching.

There are two general ways to “challenge” a designation ‒ namely, by requesting a revocation of the designation or by seeking judicial review of the decision to designate.

Request Revocation

The specific procedure depends on the case factors, including the basis on which a person wants to challenge the designation and the regime under which the person was designated. By way of example, requests for delisting of:

• UNSC listings should be made to the Focal Point for De-listing or through the country of citizenship or residence;
• UNSC listings related to ISIL (Da’esh) and Al Qaeda should be made to the UN Office of the Ombudsperson or through the country of citizenship or residence;
• UNSC listings related to the counter-terrorism (UNSCR 1373) sanctions regime should be made to DFAT; and
• listings related to Australian autonomous sanctions should be made to DFAT.

For requests concerning Australian autonomous sanctions, it is important to note that once a request is submitted, the Minister is not obligated to consider any further requests from the same entity (or on their behalf) for at least 12 months. As such, it is essential to ensure that the initial request is thoroughly prepared (ideally with legal advice) to avoid a mandatory 12-month waiting period before another request can be made.

Judicial Review

The procedure by which to challenge the decision to list itself may be different from the foregoing (eg, through administrative law) and differ from case to case.

A successful delisting challenge can result in the removal of the designation list, as this is the primary objective of such a challenge.

Importantly, there is no statutory right or framework in Australia to recover financial compensation for wrongful designation. However, there may be compensation available if the sanctions were imposed “maliciously”. This remains untested in Australia.

The time it takes to obtain a delisting may vary significantly depending on the specific circumstances. There are no statutory timeframes.

There are several – independent and overlapping – statutory regimes that prohibit, authorise or otherwise regulate the import and export of a range of goods and services in Australia.

The primary statutory instruments have been outlined below.

• The Customs Act 1901 (Cth) and the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 (Cth) ‒ these primarily deal with controls for the import and export of most goods, including defence and dual-use goods and technologies. The ABF is the primary agency responsible for enforcing this regime; however, other government agencies are involved, including the Defence Export Controls (DEC) within the Department of Defence.
• The Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act 1995 (Cth) ‒ this controls any goods, technologies or services that could be used in a weapons of mass destruction programme. The DEC administers this regime.
• Defence Trade Controls Act 2012 (Cth) ‒ this controls the transfer of defence and strategic goods, technologies and services. The DEC also administers this regime. Key to this regime is the Defence and Strategic Goods List 2024, which sets out the military and dual-use goods, software and technologies subject to export control regulations in Australia.
• Export Control Act 2020 (Cth) – this establishes a framework that regulates the export of all goods (including agricultural products and food) through the Export Control Rules 2021. This regime is generally administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

The import or export of a good or service must comply with any applicable regime, which may require seeking authorisation from the relevant authority under each regime. By way of example, the export of a dual-use good to a country subject to a sanctions regime may require an export permit from the DEC as well as a sanctions permit from the ASO.

There is notably more enforcement action regarding the abovementioned regimes than regarding the sanctions regimes.

Please refer to 5.1 Services.

Australian courts have recognised that Australian-imposed sanctions can trigger a force majeure clause, allowing the contracting party to terminate a contract. This position was made clear in Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd v Queensland Alumina Ltd (2024) FCA 43, whereby it was found that a party was entitled to cease supplying, shipping and delivering certain goods to other entities – in which the designated oligarchs held indirect shareholding interests – on the basis that such activities would breach Australia’s autonomous sanctions. This question turned on the construction of the specific sanction regime and each of the contract’s force majeure clauses. This position was confirmed by the Full Federal Court of Australia in dismissing Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd’s appeal in Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd v Queensland Alumina Ltd [2024] FCAFC 142.

Based on this, a party would have to show only on the balance of probabilities that they would breach Australian sanctions (a breach that would ordinarily require proving beyond a reasonable doubt).

Even where there is no suitable force majeure clause, there may be other avenues available to parties when sanctions affect contracted obligations, such as the common-law defence of supervening illegality. This defence is enlivened where there is a change in the law ‒ after the formation of a contract ‒ that renders the future performance of a contract unlawful. Supervening illegality is a defence to the non-performance of the contract. In some circumstances, supervening illegality may have the same terminating effect as frustration.

The impact of non-Australian sanctions on the performance of contractual obligations remains largely untested.

Australian courts are yet to consider key questions concerning the enforcement of Australian judgments ‒ or the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments ‒ where sanctions are live issues.

These questions will turn on the precise sanction regimes at play, the role of the sanctioned person or entity (eg, plaintiff, defendant, judgment creditor or judgment debtor) and the circumstances of the matter, including the timing of the proceedings. There may be influence drawn from UK decisions such as PJSC National Bank Trust & Anor v Boris Mints & Ors (2023) EWHC 118 (Comm) and the Ministry of Defence and Support for Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran v International Military Services Ltd (2019) 1 WLR 6409.

As a starting point, a permit may be able to be issued under regulation 20(4) of the Sanctions Regulations for certain dealings required to “satisfy a judicial, administrative or arbitral lien or judgment that was made before the date on which the person or entity became a designated person or entity” where the dealing is not “for the benefit” of that designatee.

It remains to be seen how courts will interpret and apply this provision, including whether it extends to foreign judgments. Regardless, the ASO has noted that assets provided to a designated person or entity as a result of a legal proceeding or settlement will be frozen until the designation is removed, an approach that seeks compliance with both pre-designation judgments and sanctions regimes.

What is clear is that a permit basis is not expressly available for judgments secured after a designation, even when those proceedings were ongoing at the time of the designation, which further widens the impact of sanctions.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs is responsible for making designation decisions.

Strictly speaking, only those who are expressly designated are designated. However, Regulation 14 of the Sanctions Regulations prohibits the indirect facilitation of the provision of sanctioned assets to a designated person. That is to say, it is an offence if one “indirectly makes an asset available to or for the benefit of a person or entity” without a permit. Australian courts have stated that this regulation should be given “the full meaning that is open from the words”, so as to include provision “through interposed corporate entities” and “where the benefit is either the object, effect or likely effect of making the asset available”.

There are also additional offences that extend prohibitions to entities or bodies “owned or controlled” by or those “acting on behalf of” (and similar language) sanctioned governments, individuals or entities.

More definitively, the assets of a designated person may not be easy to identify and may extend beyond those that are obvious, as they encompass assets owned or controlled by the designated person. The ASO’s Guidance Note – dealing with assets owned or controlled by designated persons and entities – advises that ownership and control of a given asset are determined according to the “factual circumstances, including the kind of asset and the laws of jurisdiction in which it was created”.