DeKalb County, GA Noise Ordinances: Vehicle Noise (2026)

Chapter 16 of the DeKalb County Code bans plainly audible sound between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. in the unincorporated county, but Sec. 16-303(c) lists the sounds that prohibition does not reach, and vehicles appear on the list twice. Item (10) excludes sound projected, emitted or transmitted from motor vehicles, stating that such sound is regulated by O.C.G.A. § 40-6-14(a), Georgia's state muffler and exhaust-noise statute. Item (13) separately excludes sound from the travel of properly muffled motor vehicles on a public right-of-way. Read together, a loud stereo or exhaust system is a matter for state traffic enforcement, and the ordinary sound of lawful, properly muffled traffic is not a code violation at all.

The surrounding exclusions show how the county drew its nighttime rule. Subsection (c) also exempts an emergency, defined as a serious urgent situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and requires immediate attention, along with sound from agricultural activities, residential air conditioner units, swimming pool filtering systems, and activities operating under a special administrative permit issued under the article.

For a resident of unincorporated DeKalb, the consequence is jurisdictional. A complaint about a booming car stereo or an unmuffled engine goes to traffic enforcement under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-14(a), not to county code compliance under Chapter 16. The exclusion list took its current form through Ord. No. 10-20, adopted 11-16-10.