Timing rarely makes or breaks a raise request on its own, but it does change how the conversation lands. The strongest moments are right after you deliver a clear result, at or just before your scheduled performance review, and any point where your actual responsibilities have grown well past what your title or last review described. Each of these gives your manager a natural reason to say yes: recent evidence, a process already built for the conversation, or a mismatch between your job on paper and your job in practice that someone eventually has to correct.
It is worth pausing if your company is in the middle of layoffs, a hiring freeze, or a rough quarter that has been communicated openly. That does not mean never ask, it means the answer is more likely to be about timing than about your case, so it is fair to ask directly when a better time would be rather than pushing in the moment. Asking that question still puts you on record and gives you a date to follow up against.
Preparation matters as much as timing. Keep a running note of wins as they happen, in plain terms: what you did, what changed because of it, and any number attached to it. Six months later those details blur, and a raise request built on specifics lands very differently than one built on a general sense that you have been doing well.
A good rule of thumb: if you can point to something specific you did, and you can say it out loud in one sentence without hedging, you have enough to ask. Waiting for the perfect moment indefinitely usually just means waiting, so once you have that sentence, book the meeting rather than looking for more evidence first.