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Target Class Does Not Exist in Laravel - How to Fix

This error occurs when Laravel cannot find the controller class being referenced in your routes, usually due to namespace issues or missing imports.

The Error

Error Message 
Target class [Controller] does not exist

Common Causes

  1. 1 Controller namespace not imported in routes file
  2. 2 Incorrect namespace declaration in controller
  3. 3 Typo in controller class name
  4. 4 Autoload cache is outdated
  5. 5 Using old Laravel 7 routing syntax in Laravel 8+

Solutions

1

Import the controller in your routes file

PHP 
use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;

Route::get('/posts', [PostController::class, 'index']);
2

Use full namespace in route definition

PHP 
Route::get('/posts', [App\Http\Controllers\PostController::class, 'index']);
3

Refresh autoload cache

Bash 
composer dump-autoload

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