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The Environmental trace gas Monitoring Instrument (EMI) onboard the Chinese high-resolution remote sensing satellite GaoFen-5 is an ultraviolet–visible imaging spectrometer, aiming to quantify the global distribution of tropospheric and stratospheric trace gases and planned to be launched in spring 2018. The preflight calibration phase is essential to characterize the properties and performance of the EMI in order to provide information for data processing and trace gas retrievals. In this paper, we present the first EMI measurement of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from a gas absorption cell using scattered sunlight as the light source by the differential optical absorption spectroscopy technique. The retrieved NO2 column densities in the UV and Vis wavelength ranges are consistent with the column density in the gas cell calculated from the NO2 mixing ratio and the length of the gas cell. Furthermore, the differences of the retrieved NO2 column densities among the adjoining spatial rows of the detector are less than 3%. This variation is similar to the well-known “stripes-pattern” of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument and is probably caused by remaining systematic effects like a nonperfect description of the individual instrument functions. Finally, the signal-to-noise ratios of EMI in-orbit measurements of NO2 are estimated on the basis of on-ground scattered sunlight measurements and radiative transfer model simulations. Based on our results, we conclude that the EMI is capable of measuring the global distribution of the NO2 column with the retrieval precision and accuracy better than 3% for the tested wavelength ranges and viewing angles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]