diff --git a/src/libutil/posix-source-accessor.cc b/src/libutil/posix-source-accessor.cc
index 0300de01e..f8ec7fc6b 100644
--- a/src/libutil/posix-source-accessor.cc
+++ b/src/libutil/posix-source-accessor.cc
@@ -30,6 +30,11 @@ std::filesystem::path PosixSourceAccessor::makeAbsPath(const CanonPath & path)
 {
     return root.empty()
         ? (std::filesystem::path { path.abs() })
+        : path.isRoot()
+        ? /* Don't append a slash for the root of the accessor, since
+             it can be a non-directory (e.g. in the case of `fetchTree
+             { type = "file" }`). */
+          root
         : root / path.rel();
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/functional/fetchTree-file.sh b/tests/functional/fetchTree-file.sh
index 6395c133d..be698ea35 100644
--- a/tests/functional/fetchTree-file.sh
+++ b/tests/functional/fetchTree-file.sh
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ test_fetch_file () {
         tree = builtins.fetchTree { type = "file"; url = "file://$PWD/test_input"; };
     in
     assert (tree.narHash == "$input_hash");
+    assert builtins.readFile tree == "foo\n";
     tree
 EOF
 }