Iron County, UT Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Section 17.52.020(H) governs off-premises advertising signs, defined as signs advertising goods or services offered at a place other than the sign's own location, which is the code's term for a billboard. Subsection (H)(3) allows illumination only if it is indirect, meaning the light source itself cannot be visible, and no illumination may be positioned to shine directly toward highway traffic or residential areas in a way that creates a nuisance. Subsection (H)(6) flatly prohibits any off-premises sign from being moving, animated, or audible in any manner, which covers the changing, scrolling or video content that defines a digital billboard.

These restrictions sit alongside the sign's other size and placement limits: a maximum of seven hundred square feet including cutouts and skirts, a height cap of thirty-five feet for a freestanding sign, and a requirement that the sign only be located on an already developed commercial or industrial site with a permanent building. Every off-premises sign also needs board of county commissioners approval after a planning commission recommendation under (H)(10), and must comply with the Utah Outdoor Advertising Act under (H)(8). Because a true digital billboard depends on animated or directly-illuminated content to function, the combined effect of (H)(3) and (H)(6) leaves no path to a lawful digital or electronic billboard display in the unincorporated county, regardless of size or location.