Citrus County, FL Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Chapter Nine, Sec. 9240 of the Citrus County Land Development Code, "Flashing Signs, Moving Signs, and Changeable Copy Signs," governs any sign carrying an electronic or digital display, including digital billboard faces, in unincorporated Citrus County (this LDC does not reach inside Crystal River or Inverness, which run their own sign codes). Converting an existing sign to a digital face is allowed only if it qualifies as an approved "changeable copy sign, automatic" characteristic and meets every other standard for that sign's location, height, and size.

Once operating, the message may not change more than once every 8 seconds, and the transition itself must be substantially instantaneous, with no flashing, scintillation, fading, rolling, or dissolving effects. Brightness is controlled with mandatory ambient-light monitors that auto-dim the board, and the county sets hard caps: 5,000 nits maximum during daylight and 500 nits between dusk and dawn, measured at the board's face. If a digital display malfunctions and starts flashing or moving outside its approved program, the owner or operator has 48 hours to repair or disconnect it.

Because digital displays used as billboards are also billboards under Sec. 9290, they carry the added district, size, and highway-frontage limits described in the county's freeway-facing sign rules. Growth Management's Code Compliance Division enforces these standards under the LDC's general penalties and remedies chapter (Sec. 1800), which authorizes stop-work orders and civil injunctive action for continuing violations.