Indianapolis, IN Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Sec. , billboards, wherever Table 744-903-7 lets them locate. Subsection 7 prohibits any advertising sign that contains, includes, or is illuminated by a flashing, intermittent or moving light; subsection 8 separately bans animated or moving images on the sign face itself, regardless of the light source. Those bans exist on top of, not instead of, the digital-display ban in subsection 10, so a billboard cannot get around the no-flashing rule by using LED hardware. For billboards inside a freeway or expressway protected area (within 660 feet of the right-of-way, as shown on the Official Thoroughfare Plan), Sec.

744-911(B)(2) restates the same restrictions with freeway-specific teeth: no sign may be illuminated by flashing, intermittent or moving lights (subsection a), none may move or carry animated or moving parts (subsection b), and rotating or louvered, vertically or horizontally, moving parts or elements are separately barred (subsection c). The only lighting flexibility for a freeway billboard is the narrow price-pack conversion under Sec. 744-911(B)(2)(d)(2), a static pricing display changeable up to three times daily and capped at 10% of one sign face; that display still cannot flash, animate or rotate.

Every off-premises sign also has to meet the general exterior-lighting shielding and efficiency rules of Sec. 744-604, since illuminated signs must be concealed or shielded to keep the light source itself from being visible from any property line.