Laravel eloquent where date is equal or smaller than DateTime

I think the problem is with ->format('d-m-Y'). If you are using this format in order to compare just the date without comparing the time, you can use today with carbon:

$date = Carbon::today()->addYears(2);

$deviceInspections = DB::table('device_inspections')
    ->orderBy('created_at', 'desc')
    ->where('deleted_at', NULL)
    ->whereDate('inspection_date', '<=', $date)
    ->paginate(20);

Are you sure that the format in the database is d-m-Y, is it maybe Y-m-d which is the default for a date?

@manelgavalda and @nakov you were right with my problem. Problem was with data format I changed format to Y-m-d and all is fine but maybe there is a solution to display data in a format d-m-Y? Any ideas?

You can do that on output in your view. {{ $YourModel->inspection_date->format('d-m-Y') }}

Are you using models? inspection_date would have to be in the $dates array so it will convert it to a carbon instance automatically. https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/eloquent-mutators#date-mutators

@sinres you can change the format of the date using the $casts field in the model, but that won't help with the query. So if you just want to display the date in a different format, add this in your model class containing the inspection_date field:

protected $casts = [
    'inspection_date' => 'date:d-m-Y'
];

Here is my logic: if you are comparing date then your method should be whereDate and if your comparing complete datetime then your method will be only where:

$calendar_alert = DB::table('calendar_alerts')->whereDate('when', '=', now()->format('Y-m-d'))->where('when', '>', now()->format('H:i:s'))->get();