DORA vs NIS2: what's the difference, and can one platform cover both?
DORA and NIS2 overlap but aren't the same. A clear comparison of scope, focus and obligations — and why running them together avoids duplicated work.
DORA and NIS2 are often mentioned together, and many organisations are in scope for both. They overlap — but they aren't the same regulation, and treating them as interchangeable leads to either gaps or duplicated effort.
Different scope
- DORA (Regulation (EU) 2022/2554) targets the financial sector and its ICT third-party providers. It's a regulation, so it applies directly and consistently across the EU.
- NIS2 (Directive (EU) 2022/2555) is cross-sector, covering essential and important entities across many industries. As a directive, it's transposed into national law, so details vary by member state.
Different centre of gravity
- DORA is laser-focused on digital operational resilience: ICT risk management, third-party arrangements (notably Article 30), the Register of Information, incident reporting and resilience testing.
- NIS2 is broader cybersecurity risk management with strong emphasis on governance, supply-chain security, and staged incident reporting — plus explicit management-body accountability.
Where they overlap
Both require:
- A real risk-management programme, not a paper one
- Third-party / supply-chain risk to be managed and evidenced
- Incident handling and structured reporting to authorities
- Senior accountability and an audit trail
This overlap is the opportunity. A control you implement for NIS2 supply-chain security is often the same control DORA expects for ICT third-party risk. Done well, you build once and map to both.
One platform, or two spreadsheets?
The risk with treating DORA and NIS2 separately is duplicated controls, divergent evidence, and two teams maintaining two versions of the truth. The alternative is a single control library where overlapping requirements are mapped and reused across frameworks.
That's how ResiliencePilot is built: DORA, NIS2, ISO 27001 and the rest share one control and evidence model, so satisfying one moves you forward on the others. Explore the DORA and NIS2 solutions, or book a demo to see the cross-mapping in action.