The raise is decided months before the conversation feels due.

When to Ask for a Raise: Work Back From the Budget

By the NegotiateIt team · Updated September 2026 · Reviewed against the work of Chris Voss, Roger Fisher and William Ury.

The situation

At a company with an annual cycle, raises come out of one pool. Finance proposes a percentage, leadership approves it, and each manager gets a share to split across their team. While the budget is a draft, your manager can argue for more money for the team and for an exception for you. Once it is approved, moving money toward you means taking it from a colleague, and after calibration the number is usually fixed. So the date that decides your raise is the approval date. Ask for it: "When does comp planning start this year, and when do recommendations go in?"

You joined three or six months ago. The usual answer is to wait. Vicki Salemi of Monster told CNBC in 2018 to give a new job at least six months, because anything sooner is "not enough time for you to prove yourself." A year is the other common answer, since most employers only move salaries once a year. The exception is a change you can point to. Your manager left and you took their reports, or the scope in your offer letter no longer describes your week. The clock then runs from the date of the change. Ask HR one more thing: whether people hired this year are eligible in the coming cycle, because some companies pro-rate or skip anyone who joined after a cutoff.

The letter came and the number was 2%, or the cycle closed before you asked. This cycle’s money is allocated, and arguing with the letter rarely moves it. Go back inside two weeks with three questions: what the number was based on, what would have produced a bigger one, and whether an off-cycle adjustment is possible. In the same Mercer survey, 64% of US employers said they have provided off-cycle adjustments or will provide them in 2027. Then put your figure for the next cycle in writing, agree a date to revisit both, and confirm it by email the same day.

A promotion raise is that cycle’s raise, and it comes out of a separate pool. Fewer people draw on it, and the average increase per person is well above a merit raise; the promotion guide has the figures and the four terms worth asking about. The moment to push is while the promotion is being offered, before you accept the number. One exception holds afterwards. If your new salary sits below the minimum of the band for the new level, say so straight away and bring the band.

Two changes justify an ask whatever the calendar says. Scope is the first. A departure or a reorganisation leaves you doing a larger job than the one your pay was set for. Raise it within weeks, while the extra load is still visibly extra. The second is a competing offer you would genuinely take. Off-cycle money needs approval above your manager, so hand them a short written case they can forward.

If it has simply been a long time, measure the gap in cycles. One full cycle in which you were eligible and your pay did not move deserves a direct question within a month of the letters. Two in a row, with no plan to change it, tells you what your pay will do at that company.

The calendar shifts by country. In the UK, Brightmine data reported in April 2026 showed almost half of pay settlements take place in April, with a median award of 3% that month. The award is usually decided before the letter arrives, so make the case in the months before it. In India, many companies appraise on the April to March financial year, and ratings settle before increments are announced, so the case belongs in the weeks before your manager submits ratings.

Subject: Following up on our pay conversation

Hi [Name],

Thanks for talking this through today. So I have it right: this cycle’s increases are final, and you’ll put [$X] forward for me in the [year] cycle, when recommendations open in [month].

You’ll also check with HR whether an off-cycle adjustment is possible if [result] lands by [date].

We meet again on [date], before recommendations are due.

If I’ve misread any of that, tell me and I’ll correct it.

[Your name]

Say this

• When do raise recommendations go in this year, and when is the budget approved? I’d like to talk about my pay while there’s still room to plan for it.
• I’m raising this in [August] on purpose. Budgets get set in the autumn, and I’d like you to have my case while yours is still a draft.
• I know it’s only been [five] months. Since [Name] left I’ve also run [their accounts], which wasn’t part of the job I was hired for, and I’d like to agree a date to review my pay against that.
• The raise this year was [X]%. What would have made it larger, and when should we talk so that’s in front of the decision next time?

How it sounds

What not to say

Hold off during a layoff round or a restructure, when your manager may not know what happens to their own team, and in the week after a missed deadline or a failed launch. The answer that week will be no, and your manager will remember when you chose to ask.

Wait if you accepted a number in the last few months. A promotion counts, and so does a counter-offer to stay. You agreed to that figure, and asking again before anything has changed tells your manager the agreement was provisional. And do not bring the same case back twice in one cycle. A second request on the same evidence adds nothing to the budget and costs goodwill. Come back when the job has grown, or when you hold a real offer. Otherwise wait until planning opens.

Common mistakes

• Waiting for the review meeting to ask. By then the pool is allocated, and the best answer available in that room is next year.
• Hearing "not this cycle" as permanent, or taking it with no figure and no date. That no usually covers this year’s pool and nothing else, and next cycle opens with a fresh budget and, often, a manager who never heard the promise.
• Asking at three months in a job that has not changed. It sounds like regret about the offer, and it spends credibility you want at your first real cycle.
• Treating the promotion raise as a bonus. At many companies it is that cycle’s raise, so a merit ask three months later has nothing left to draw on.
• Silence, on the theory that good work gets noticed. Recommendations get written for the people whose case is in front of the manager while the pool is being split, and a quiet year looks like a satisfied one.

Questions people ask

Practice the real thing

• Pro scenario: turn "the timing just isn’t quite right yet" into a date
• Free scenario: hold a number against a VP who cites budget
• Free scenario: negotiate the six-month review before you sign

The techniques this uses

• How to ask: the case, the number, the script
• Negotiating the pay that comes with the promotion
• The India version: time the ask before ratings lock
• Get Ahead: name the budget date before they do
• Plan B: when a real offer changes the clock
• India: work out your hike percentage before appraisal