Coweta County, GA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

The sign ordinance defines a "changeable copy sign" in § 58-5 as any sign that incorporates changing lights, lettering, or images to form a message, whether the change happens electronically or manually, which covers digital billboards, electronic message centers, and LED reader boards alike. Section 58-6(a) folds any digital conversion into the chapter's permit requirement, stating that converting an existing sign to tri-vision, LED, or similar technology triggers the same permit review the director applies to a newly erected sign. Once installed, § 58-6(g)(1) restricts how a nonresidential digital display can operate: it may not flash, move, change in intensity, or turn its message on and off more than once per day, and its light beam must be aimed so it isn't visible beyond the sign itself or from neighboring property and the public right-of-way.

Section 58-6(g)(2) is even tighter in residential districts, where signs may not be illuminated at all except at a subdivision entrance, which rules out digital displays in residential zones altogether. Freestanding off-premise billboards face a separate, narrower path: the only place a large-format sign is allowed at all is as an "interstate sign" under § 58-7(i), capped at 600 square feet and 50 feet in height within 600 feet of Interstate 85's right-of-way, and outdoor advertising signs (billboards) are expressly listed as a prohibited use within the quality development corridor overlay district.

Nothing in chapter 58 separately authorizes a digital or electronic message board on an off-premise billboard; any conversion of such a structure to changing imagery would still have to satisfy the once-per-day change limit in § 58-6(g)(1).