How to get database field type in Laravel?

For Laravel 5.2 - 9.x

use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Builder::getColumnType()

DB::getSchemaBuilder()->getColumnType($tableName, $colName)

e.g.

$ageType = DB::getSchemaBuilder()->getColumnType('user', 'age')

You may need to run this command if you haven't already:

composer require doctrine/dbal

For Laravel 4:

After digging in Laravel, this is what I got.

DB::connection()->getDoctrineColumn('users', 'age')->getType()->getName()