San Antonio, TX Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Sec. 28-43 of the San Antonio Code of Ordinances sets the lighting rules for every digital display in the city, whether it sits on the same lot as the business it advertises or is an off-premise billboard. These rules apply on top of any specific rule found elsewhere in Chapter 28. Sec. 28-6 defines a digital display as a sign face or device showing images made of electronically illuminated segments or grid lights, including LED, plasma, LCD and fiber optic technology.

The core rule bars light of such intensity or brilliance that it causes glare, impairs a driver's vision, or becomes a nuisance to the driver. The code then turns "excessive" into numbers. Daytime ceilings are 3150 nits for red only, 6300 for green only, 4690 for amber only and 7000 for full color. Nighttime ceilings drop to 1125, 2250, 1675 and 2500 nits. Every digital sign must carry both a dimmer control and a photocell that adjusts the display's intensity to natural ambient light.

Nits are not the only test. Displays must stay within 0.3 footcandles over ambient light for the location and time, and must use light cutoff devices such as louvers to keep light from escaping above the horizontal plane. Footcandle readings are taken at ground level, 100 feet from signs of 0 to 100 square feet, 150 feet for 101 to 350 square feet, 200 feet for 351 to 650 square feet, and 250 feet for signs over 651 square feet. Measured from the nearest residential property line, light from an adjacent digital sign cannot exceed 0.2 footcandles.

Before the city issues a digital sign permit, the application must acknowledge that the intensity was factory pre-set at no more than 7,000 nits and is protected from end-user manipulation. Each sign needs a default mechanism that freezes it in one position after a malfunction, and the display must be turned off if it still endangers travelers. Compliance is checked with a calibrated, certified luminance meter or photometer, between the end of evening civil twilight and the start of morning civil twilight, with at least five recorded readings per sign or sign area. The readings, with date, time and permit number, go into the city's permitting system.

Signs lawfully in place before July 3, 2017 had one year to conform. Incandescent or monochrome single-color LED signs used only for text were excluded.