Crystals of the title compound, C(10)H(13)N(3)O(2), were obtained from a condensation reaction of butan-2-one and 1-(2-nitro-phen-yl)hydrazine. The mol-ecule exhibits a nearly coplanar structure, except for the methyl and methyl-ene H atoms, the largest deviations from the mean plane defined by all non-H atoms, except for the nitro group, being 0.120 (2) Å for one of the nitro O atoms. Intra-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bonding helps to establish the mol-ecular configuration.