Birmingham, AL Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 9 of Article VI in the city's zoning ordinance (Appendix D) treats digital and electronic billboards as a lighting question rather than a separate use. Subsection 2 defines three sign-lighting types: indirect (reflected light aimed at a sign from an outside source), direct (light emitted from within or affixed to the sign face), and intermittent (any flashing light, including arrangements that spell messages, simulate motion, or form symbols or images). Subsection 6, covering off-premises sign regulations, applies that definition directly to billboards: off-premises signs cannot be illuminated by intermittent lighting except displays giving public-service information such as time, date, temperature, weather, or news.

In practice, a billboard operator can run a static digital face or a rotating public-service message, but cannot run scrolling ads, animated graphics, or video content that counts as intermittent. The same subsection caps total sign area at 800 square feet, height at 40 feet, and length at 50 feet, and requires 1,000 feet of separation between billboards on the same side of a street (500 feet on opposite sides). The city's fee schedule adds a $300 per-face surcharge for any reader board, message board, animated, or video display erected as an off-premises billboard, on top of the base $400 permit fee and the $50 annual per-structure fee due every January 31. General Subsection 5 shielding rules also apply, barring illumination that beams onto streets or into residential buildings.