Merced, CA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)
Key Facts
- Permit required
- Conditional use permit
- Daytime brightness cap
- 465 lumens/sq ft (5,000 nits)
- Night brightness cap
- 47 lumens/sq ft (500 nits)
- Minimum change interval
- Once every 8 seconds
- Video/flashing
- Prohibited
- Digital billboards
- Barred entirely, Sec. 20.62.310.D
Summary
Merced requires a conditional use permit for digital display signs and limits them to freestanding signs in commercial, overlay, and equivalent planned development zones. Brightness, refresh rate, and content are all separately capped, and digital displays are barred from billboards entirely.
A. Digital display signs are allowed on freestanding signs with a conditional use permit issued pursuant to this title only within the Thoroughfare Commercial zone, Regional/Central Commercial zone, General Commercial zone, Neighborhood Commercial zone, Commercial Shopping Center zone, Freeway Overlay District, Old 99 Overlay District, and any Planned Development zone that has the equivalent general plan land use designation... B.3. The digital display sign shall be limited to a maximum illumination of four hundred sixty-five (465) lumen per square foot (or five thousand (5,000) nits) during daylight hours and a maximum illumination of forty-seven (47) lumen per square foot (or five hundred (500) nits) between dusk to dawn... 4. No portion of the digital display sign face shall change more frequently than once every eight (8) seconds. No portion of the digital display sign face shall flash, blink, or include a video display.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: Code of Ordinances: Supplement 85 - 1-26).
Full Breakdown
06-1. Subsection B sets the technical standards: the display face must be angled away from the front or side of residential properties in a residential zone, must be framed by a sign structure border at least three inches wide, and is capped at 465 lumens per square foot (5,000 nits) in daylight and 47 lumens per square foot (500 nits) between dusk and dawn, with automatic dimmers strongly recommended. Content on a digital display cannot change more than once every eight seconds and may never flash, blink, or run video, and the display cannot emit any audible sound, buzz, or noise.
030. A bans new billboards citywide outright, so a proposed 'digital billboard' cannot be permitted in Merced under any zoning designation. These standards were adopted as part of Ordinance No. 2549, effective October 16, 2023.
Violations & Fines
Installing a digital display sign without the required conditional use permit, or operating one outside its lumen, refresh-rate, or zoning limits, makes the sign unlawful and a public nuisance under Section 20.62.360, triggering enforcement under Merced Municipal Code Section 1.09.020 and, if uncorrected, abatement under the public nuisance procedures of Section 8.40.080 for illegal signs under Section 20.62.350.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Sources & Official References
Other rules in Merced
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