Beaufort County, SC Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Beaufort County regulates billboard lighting through two Community Development Code provisions read together. Section 5.6.50, the Off-Premises Sign Standards, treats retrofitted lighting as a prohibited structural change: Subsection B.3 bars "extension, enlargement, replacement, rebuilding, adding lights to an un-illuminated sign, changing the height of the sign above ground, or re-erection of the sign." An owner of an existing dark billboard cannot simply bolt on new lighting; doing so is treated as a substantive alteration "deemed an abandonment of the sign," voiding the permit and triggering removal at the owner's expense under Subsection B.2.

For signs that are lawfully illuminated, Section 5.7.60, Sign Lighting, sets the technical standard: "Lighting fixtures illuminating signs shall comply with the standards of Section 5.6.30.C, and such fixtures shall be aimed and shielded so that direct illumination is focused exclusively on the sign face and is not visible from off-site areas." That means spotlights and gooseneck fixtures lighting a sign face cannot spill glare onto neighboring parcels, the roadway, or beyond the sign itself. Combined with Section 5.6.50.A's outright ban on new off-premises signs and on digital displays on off-premises signs, the practical effect is that Beaufort County has no path to a newly or additionally illuminated billboard: new ones cannot be built at all, and old ones cannot be upgraded with lighting they did not already have.