A new nonlinear travelling-wave solution for a flow through an isothermal square duct is discovered. The solution is found by a continuation approach in parameter space, starting from a case where the fluid is heated internally. The Reynolds number for which the travelling wave emerges is much lower than that of the solutions discovered recently by an analysis based on the self-sustaining process (Wedin et al., Phys. Rev. E, vol. 79, 2009, p. 065305; Uhlmann et al., Advances in Turbulence XII, 2009, pp. 585–588). Furthermore, the new travelling-wave solution is shown to be unstable from the onset.