If you’re working with Laravel 10+ and run into the frustrating error:

Target class [DatabaseSeeder] does not exist.

…you’re not alone. This is a common issue developers face, especially when upgrading from older Laravel versions (like Laravel 7 or 8), or when working in a freshly cloned project.

In this blog, I’ll explain why this happens, what I encountered, and how I fixed it step by step.

The Error Message

When I ran:

php artisan db:seed

Laravel returned this error:

Target class [DatabaseSeeder] does not exist.

Even though I had the DatabaseSeeder.php file, Laravel still couldn’t find it. Here’s the root cause and fix.

Root Cause

In Laravel 8+, the location for seeders was changed from:

/database/seeds/

to:

/database/seeders/

If your project still uses the old path /database/seeds/, Laravel may not detect your seeders by default.

My Solution (Laravel 10+)

Step 1: Move Your Seeder File

I renamed my folder from:

/database/seeds/

to:

/database/seeders/

And moved my file:

/database/seeds/DatabaseSeeder.php

to:

/database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php

Make sure the namespace inside the file is updated accordingly:

namespace Database\Seeders;

Step 2: Fix Composer Autoload (if previously modified)

Earlier, my composer.json file had this line under autoload > classmap:

"classmap": [
    "database/seeds"
]

Since I moved the files to database/seeders/, I updated it to:

"classmap": [
    "database/seeders"
]

Step 3: Run Composer Autoload

After fixing the path, I regenerated autoload files:

composer dump-autoload

This time, there were no errors. Laravel successfully detected the seeders.

Step 4: Seed the Database

Finally, I re-ran:

php artisan db:seed