Dallas, TX Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Sec. 303(a) sets a luminance ceiling measured in footlamberts: an illuminated sign with an effective area of 400 square feet or less may not exceed 300 footlamberts, including within any two-foot-diameter circle on its face, and a sign larger than 400 square feet may not exceed 200 footlamberts under the same two-foot-circle test. Luminance is measured from any other premise or from a public right-of-way other than an alley, so the standard is applied from the vantage point of someone who would actually see the glare.

Subsection (b) then targets the animation effects that make an illuminated sign read like a video billboard: no illuminated sign or illuminated element may turn on or off or change brightness if doing so produces an apparent motion of the visual image, moving objects, moving light bands, expanding or contracting shapes, or rotation, if the message changes more often than once every three seconds for a time-or-temperature display or once every 20 seconds for any other message, or if any two-foot-circle portion of the sign exceeds 200 footlamberts while fully and steadily illuminated.

300 rules for business zoning districts; a separate, largely parallel standard governs non-business districts at Sec. 402. The rules apply on top of, not instead of, the separate digital-display permit and siting standards in Sec. 308 that specifically govern converted electronic billboards.