Kingsport, TN Fence Regulations: Height Limits (2026)

Kingsport Code § 114-139, part of Chapter 114 (Zoning) adopted by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, sets two height caps that depend on the yard. In any residence, business or professional district, a wall or fence in a front yard cannot exceed six feet. In any other yard the cap rises to eight feet. The section then removes the cap in two situations: any wall or fence in an industrial district, and an approved retaining wall in any district.

Corner lots carry a second limit in Sec. 114-134, titled Traffic visibility across corner lots. In any residential zone, on any corner lot, no fence, structure or planting can be erected or maintained within ten feet of the intersection of the two street pavement edges, unless another section of the chapter provides otherwise. Because the rule names plantings as well as structures, a hedge inside that ten-foot zone is treated the same as a solid fence.

The yard a fence sits in decides which cap applies. Sec. 114-138(3)c requires a front yard along each street lot line of a lot that runs through a block from street to street, so a through lot has a front yard on both streets. Sec. 114-138(4)c makes the side yard along the side street of a corner lot in a residential zone at least 50 percent greater than the side yard required for that zone, which shapes where a wall can sit on a corner property.

Farm fencing has its own rule in the Urban Agricultural Estate district. Sec. 114-202 requires a legal fence not less than five feet and not more than six feet in height where a pasture or grazing area abuts a common property line with adjacent residential property. The zoning administrator, working with the Kingsport building official, administers the chapter under Sec. 114-35.