Date and place of writing: Corinth, c. AD 56–57, and Phoebe

Says Paul writes as he is about to take a gift from the churches of Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem (Rom 15:25–26), after which he plans to visit Rome on the way to Spain (15:24, 28). He commends Phoebe, a διάκονος (diakonos, "servant, minister") of the church at Cenchreae (16:1–2), and sends greetings from Gaius, host of the whole church, and from Erastus, the city's οἰκονόμος (oikonomos, "treasurer," 16:23).

Implies Corinth is the likely place. Cenchreae was Corinth's eastern harbor; Paul baptized a Gaius at Corinth (1 Cor 1:14); 1 Cor 16:1–4 has the collection gathered there; and Acts places a three-month stay in Greece just before the journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:2–3). Phoebe heads the greetings with a formal commendation, so she probably carried the letter.

An inscription from Delphi, a letter of Claudius, dates L. Junius Gallio's proconsulship of Achaia to about AD 51–52 (Deissmann, St. Paul, app. I). That fixes Paul's first stay in Corinth (Acts 18:12) and anchors the later chronology.

Uncertain Counting from Gallio through the Ephesian ministry (Acts 19:8–10; 20:31) puts the three months in Greece in about AD 56–57, but reconstructions differ by a year or more (roughly 55–58). Some have argued that Romans 16 was a separate note sent to Ephesus. The team follows the manuscript tradition, in which chapter 16 belongs to the letter; in any case 15:25–26 points to the same setting. The place is well supported; the exact year is not.