The Certified Global Sanctions Specialist (CGSS) from ACAMS is aimed at people who work in sanctions screening, investigations and advisory roles. Since 2022, sanctions work has grown faster than almost any other part of financial crime compliance, and the CGSS has become the credential that shows you understand it beyond list screening.
What the exam covers
Expect four broad areas:
- Sanctions regimes and authorities: the UN Security Council, the US (OFAC, State, Commerce export controls), the EU, the UK (OFSI) and how they interact, including secondary sanctions.
- Compliance programmes and screening: risk assessment, customer and payment screening, fuzzy matching, alert handling, ownership and control rules such as OFAC's 50 percent rule.
- Evasion and red flags: front companies, transshipment, maritime deceptive practices such as ship-to-ship transfers and AIS manipulation, use of family members and proxies.
- Investigations, reporting and enforcement: blocking and rejecting, reporting deadlines, voluntary self-disclosure and how penalties are assessed.
Check the current ACAMS candidate handbook for the exact format and timing before you book.
How to prepare
- Learn the differences between regimes. Many questions turn on what the US requires compared with the EU or UK: ownership thresholds, who must comply, how assets are frozen.
- Practise scenarios. A ship changes name, a buyer's address is in a third country, a payment goes through an unexpected intermediary: what does each fact tell you?
- Know the vocabulary of enforcement. Strict liability, egregious versus non-egregious cases, mitigating factors.
Start with our free CGSS diagnostic and the CGSS flashcards.