Abstract A direct numerical simulation (DNS) of the incompressible flow around a rectangular cylinder with chord-to-thickness ratio 5:1 (also known as the BARC benchmark) is presented. The work replicates the first DNS of this kind recently presented by Cimarelli et al. (J Wind Eng Ind Aerodyn 174:39–495, 2018), and intends to contribute to a solid numerical benchmark, albeit at a relatively low value of the Reynolds number. The study differentiates from previous work by using an in-house finite-differences solver instead of the finite-volumes toolbox OpenFOAM, and by employing finer spatial discretization and longer temporal average. The main features of the flow are described, and quantitative differences with the existing results are highlighted. The complete set of terms appearing in the budget equation for the components of the Reynolds stress tensor is provided for the first time. The different regions of the flow where production, redistribution and dissipation of each component take place are identified, and the anisotropic and inhomogeneous nature of the flow is discussed. Such information is valuable for the verification and fine-tuning of turbulence models in this complex separating and reattaching flow.