Green Bay, WI Home Business: Signage Rules (2026)

Chapter 30 exempts certain small signs from the City's sign-permit process, and the exemption covering a home business nameplate sits at § 30-6(1): "House numbers and nameplates. Residential and professional house numbers and nameplates not exceeding one square foot in area per building identifying the owner or occupant of a property or name of a permitted home-based occupation." One square foot is the ceiling, and it doesn't count toward the property's overall sign allowance, because Section 30-6 provides that exempt signs "shall not be applied toward the maximum sign allowance specified for a property, except as otherwise indicated in this section."

This exemption is the mechanism behind § 44-1587(l), the zoning chapter's home-occupation rule that a home-based occupation "may have an identification sign conforming to the standards for signs in residential districts, as specified in Chapter 30, Signs." Residential districts (R-1, R-2, R-3, RR) don't otherwise list a stand-alone home-business sign category under § 30-33, so the one-square-foot nameplate exemption is the only identification sign a home occupation gets without applying for a permit.

Anything bigger, or mounted other than flat against the building as the exemption assumes, falls outside § 30-6(1) and needs a full sign permit under § 30-5(1), including a site plan and hold-harmless agreement reviewed by the Zoning Administrator. An unpermitted oversized sign is enforceable as an unsafe or unlawful sign under § 30-5(7): the Zoning Administrator gives the owner written notice, and if the sign isn't removed or brought into compliance within 30 days, the City can remove or alter it and bill the property owner for the cost.