R16: Account Frozen / Entry Returned per OFAC Instruction
The account is frozen, or the entry was stopped for sanctions reasons.
| Code | R16 |
|---|---|
| Official reason | Account Frozen / Entry Returned per OFAC Instruction |
| Applies to | Credits and debits |
| Return deadline | 2 banking days |
What R16 means
Two quite different situations share one code. Either the account is subject to a legal freeze — a levy, a court order, a bank hold — or the entry was returned on OFAC instruction because a party appears on a sanctions list. The return itself does not tell you which.
What to do next
Do not simply re-send. Contact the recipient, and if the return looks sanctions-related, raise it with your bank's compliance team rather than resolving it yourself.
Can this happen on a file from this generator?
Yes — and it is the one credit-side return a prenote will not protect you from. A legal freeze or an OFAC hold has nothing to do with whether the account details are correct, so verifying them in advance changes nothing. Treat a suspected sanctions return as a compliance matter for your bank rather than a data problem to fix and re-send.
Other return codes
R01, R02, R03, R04, R06, R07, R08, R09, R10, R11, R17, R20, R23, R29. The full list includes every code from R01 to R33.