How to Get the Current Date and Time in SQL Server

GETDATE() returns datetime, accurate to roughly 3 milliseconds. SYSDATETIME() returns datetime2 at far higher precision and is the better default on modern versions. The two UTC variants return the same instants in UTC, which is what anything compared across regions should use. SYSDATETIMEOFFSET() adds the offset itself.

SELECT GETDATE(), SYSDATETIME(), GETUTCDATE(), SYSUTCDATETIME();

Today's date without the time

Casting to date is the correct way to strip the time; the old CONVERT(varchar, GETDATE(), 112) trick produces a string that sorts as one. When filtering, avoid CAST(created_at AS date) = @today, since wrapping the column makes the predicate non-sargable and blocks the index. Use created_at >= @today AND created_at < DATEADD(day, 1, @today) instead.

SELECT CAST(GETDATE() AS date) AS today;