now() and today()
now() returns the current moment as a Carbon date object.
Syntax
now()->format('Y-m-d');The now() helper returns a Carbon instance for the current date and time. today() returns the current date at midnight. Because they are Carbon objects, you can format and manipulate them fluently.
Example
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When to use it
- A controller stores the current timestamp in a record's 'published_at' column using now() without importing Carbon explicitly.
- A query scope filters records created within the last 24 hours by comparing 'created_at' to now()->subDay().
- A scheduled job sets a reminder to fire exactly one week from the current moment by passing now()->addWeek() to the job's delay.
More examples
Get and format the current time
now() returns a Carbon instance for the current moment, providing all of Carbon's formatting methods without importing the class.
$now = now();
$now->toDateString(); // '2025-03-14'
$now->toDateTimeString(); // '2025-03-14 09:30:00'
$now->format('D, d M Y'); // 'Fri, 14 Mar 2025'Relative time arithmetic
Chains Carbon arithmetic methods onto now() to compute future or past timestamps for expiry dates, cutoff filters, and delay scheduling.
$expiry = now()->addDays(30); // 30 days from now
$cutoff = now()->subHours(6); // 6 hours ago
$nextWeek = now()->addWeek(); // same time, one week later
// Use in a query
$recentOrders = Order::where('created_at', '>=', now()->subDay())->get();Publish an article with now()
Sets the published_at timestamp to the exact current moment and echoes it in the flash message using the same now() call.
public function publish(Post $post): RedirectResponse
{
$post->update([
'published_at' => now(),
'status' => 'published',
]);
return redirect()->route('posts.show', $post)
->with('success', 'Post published at ' . now()->toTimeString());
}
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