Laravel Query Builder: Complete Guide + Examples 2026

When building an application with Laravel, you don't always have to use the Eloquent ORM. For more complex queries, or when performance becomes a priority, the Query Builder is the right choice. The Query Builder provides a convenient and secure interface for building SQL queries without writing raw SQL directly.

What Is the Query Builder?

The Query Builder is an abstraction layer on top of PDO that Laravel provides through the DB facade. With the Query Builder, you can build queries through method chaining, and Laravel automatically handles data escaping so you are protected from SQL Injection.

Retrieving Data (Select)

The most basic approach is retrieving all rows from a table:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

// Get all data from the users table
$users = DB::table('users')->get();

// Get only specific columns
$users = DB::table('users')->select('name', 'email')->get();

// Get the first matching row
$user = DB::table('users')->where('email', '[e-mail]')->first();

// Get the value of a single column
$email = DB::table('users')->where('id', 1)->value('email');

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Laravel Query Builder: Complete Guide + Examples 2026

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