Durham, NC Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

UDO Sec. 11.3.1, Animated or Motion Signs, prohibits 'signs with animated, blinking, chasing, flashing, or moving effects' outright. Subsection A, General Prohibition, applies that ban 'in all tiers other than the Downtown Tier,' explicitly reaching sign faces that periodically change to show different images or messages, language that covers true digital billboards. The only carve-out is Subsection B, Exception for Downtown Tier: within the Downtown Tier a moving or animated sign can be approved, but only through a minor special use permit under Sec. 3.9, and the Planning Department must weigh whether the signs are spaced to avoid an excess of animated signage in the area, whether they harm traffic safety, and whether they carry artistic or historic merit.

A related but distinct allowance covers static, non-animated changeable copy, the kind used on gas price boards, theater marquees and church message centers. Sec. 11.2.7 permits changeable copy only on on-premise signs in nonresidential districts, on nonresidential uses in the PDR District, or on places of worship and institutional uses in any district. No more than 50% of a sign's area may be changeable copy (up to 80% for theater signs), and the displayed message cannot change more than eight times per day, except for time-and-temperature displays. Even permitted changeable copy still cannot be 'animated, blinking, chasing, flashing, or have other moving effects', it can only switch from one static message to the next. Time-and-temperature signs and Downtown special-use-permit signs are the two named exceptions to the citywide animated-sign ban.