How to reload/refresh model from database in Laravel?

There was a commit submitted to the 4.0 branch made in August to add a reload() method, but so far it hasn't been merged with the newer Laravel branches.

But... Laravel 5 is providing a "fresh()" method that will return a new instance of the current model. Once you're using Laravel 5.0 or newer, you can reload a model like this:

$model = $model->fresh(); 

Note that fresh() doesn't directly update your existing $model, it just returns a new instance, so that's why we need to use "$model = ". It also accepts a parameter which is an array of relations that you want it to eager load.

If you aren't yet using Laravel 5 but you want the same functionality, you can add this method to your model(s):

public function fresh(array $with = array())
{
    $key = $this->getKeyName();
    return $this->exists ? static::with($with)->where($key, $this->getKey())->first() : null;
}

Update: If you're using Laravel 5.4.24 or newer, there is now a $model->refresh() method that you can use to refresh the object's attributes and relationships in place rather than fetching a new object like fresh() does. See Jeff Puckett answer for more specifics on that.

• refresh() is a mutable operation: It will reload the current model instance from the database.
• fresh() is an immutable operation: It returns a new model instance from the database. It doesn't affect the current instance.

// Database state:
$user=User::create([
  'name' => 'John',
]);

// Model (memory) state:
$user->name = 'Sarah';

$user2 = $user->fresh();
// $user->name => 'Sarah';
// $user2->name => 'John'

$user->refresh();
// $user->name => 'John'

Thanks to PR#19174 available since 5.4.24 is the refresh method.

$model->refresh();

This way you don't have to deal with reassignment as is shown in other answers with the fresh method, which is generally not helpful if you want to refresh a model that's been passed into another method because the variable assignment will be out of scope for the calling contexts to use later.