Jackson, TN Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Jackson's sign code bans animated and intensely lighted signs outright rather than merely restricting them by district. Under § 14-409(1), no sign in the city, including an off-premise (billboard) sign permitted under § 14-406(12), may be animated by sparkle, scintillating, blinking or traveling lights, or by any other means that creates the appearance of movement in the lighting. The only carve-out is for illumination that functions as an integral part of a display providing constant illumination, meaning a sign can be lit, but the light itself cannot flash, chase or otherwise move, and the code allows exceptions only within specially designated sign districts.

Because the ban sits in § 14-409, the chapter titled Prohibited Signs, it applies on top of the size and height limits that already govern off-premise signs, such as the 720-square-foot cap on controlled-access-street billboards and the 400-square-foot cap elsewhere under § 14-406(12)(c). A digital billboard that displays static, unchanging copy and simply changes that copy periodically is treated differently under the exempt-sign provisions, which exempt the act of changing advertising copy on an already-permitted changeable-copy sign from needing a new permit, but the animation and traveling-light ban in § 14-409(1) still controls how that copy may be lit and transitioned.