Art. 9 Materiality thresholds for determining major incidents | RTS on incident classification | DORA

This article is the quantitative and qualitative backbone of the incident classification framework, directly supporting Article 8, which sets out when an incident qualifies as a major incident.

Article 9 translates the broad criteria introduced in Article 18(1) of DORA into concrete, measurable thresholds across six distinct dimensions: clients and transactions affected, reputational impact, duration and service downtime, geographical spread, data losses, and economic impact.

Together, these thresholds give financial entities a clear set of triggers to determine when an incident crosses the line into major incident territory.

Important points:

Assess each of the six materiality thresholds against your incident to determine whether a major incident reporting obligation under Article 8 is triggered.
Where exact figures cannot be determined, estimate the number of affected clients, financial counterparts, or transactions using data from comparable reference periods.
Key hard thresholds to be aware of include: more than 10% or 100,000 affected clients, service downtime exceeding 2 hours for critical or important functions, and costs or losses exceeding 100,000 euro.

1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘clients, financial counterparts and transactions’ is met where any of the following conditions are fulfilled:
  1. the number of affected clients is higher than 10 % of all clients using the affected service;
  2. the number of affected clients using the affected service is higher than 100 000;
  3. the number of affected financial counterparts is higher than 30 % of all financial counterparts carrying out activities related to the provision of the affected service;
  4. the number of affected transactions is higher than 10 % of the daily average number of transactions carried out by the financial entity related to the affected service;
  5. the amount of affected transactions is higher than 10 % of the daily average value of transactions carried out by the financial entity related to the affected service;
  6. clients or financial counterparts which have been identified as relevant in accordance with Article 1(3) have been affected.
2. Where the actual number of clients or financial counterparts affected or the actual number or amount of transactions affected cannot be determined, the financial entity shall estimate those numbers or amounts based on available data from comparable reference periods.
1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘reputational impact’ is met where any of the conditions set out in Article 2, points (a) to (d), are fulfilled.
1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘duration and service downtime’ is met where any of the following conditions are fulfilled:
  1. the duration of the incident is longer than 24 hours;
  2. the service downtime is longer than 2 hours for ICT services that support critical or important functions.
1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘geographical spread’ is met where the incident has an impact in two or more Member States in accordance with Article 4.
1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘data losses’ is met where any of the following conditions are fulfilled:
  1. any impact as referred to in Article 5 on the availability, authenticity, integrity or confidentiality of data has or will have an adverse impact on the implementation of the business objectives of the financial entity or on its ability to meet regulatory requirements;
  2. any successful, malicious and unauthorised access not covered by point (a) occurs to network and information systems, where such access may result in data losses.
1. The materiality threshold for the criterion ‘economic impact’ is met where the costs and losses incurred by the financial entity due to the incident have exceeded or are likely to exceed 100 000 euro.