The title compound, C(13)H(13)NO(3), was synthesized by acetyl-ation of ethyl 1H-indole-3-carboxyl-ate. The aromatic ring system of the mol-ecule is essentially planar, but the saturated ethyl group is also located within this plane and the overall r.m.s. deviation from planarity is only 0.034 Å. Pairs of C-H⋯O inter-actions connect mol-ecules into chains along the diagonal of the unit cell. Mol-ecules also form weakly connected dimers via π⋯π stacking inter-actions of the indole rings with centroid-centroid separations of 3.571 (1) Å. C-H⋯π inter-actions between methyl-ene and methyl groups and the indole and benzene ring complete the directional inter-molecular inter-actions found in the crystal structure.