The title compound, C12H10N2O2, has a twisted conformation, with a dihedral angle between the planes of the pyridine and benzene rings of 78.4 (2)°. The nitro group is coplanar with the attached benzene ring within experimental error. The mol-ecules form centrosymmetric dimers via Car-H⋯O inter-actions (H⋯O = 2.49 Å) and the dimers are π-stacked along the b axis [the separation between ring centroids is 3.788 (2) Å].