Sumner County, TN Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Chapter 12's definitions section, Sec. 1202, defines an "off-premise sign" as one that "advertises goods, services, facilities, events or attractions available at a location other than the premises where the sign is located, including but not limited to billboards." Sec. 1204, the Prohibited Signs list, then bars off-premise signs outright at item N: they may neither be erected nor maintained anywhere in the unincorporated county, with no variance or conditional-use pathway listed in that chapter. A digital billboard, an electronic display advertising an off-site business along a highway, meets that off-premise definition regardless of its technology.

The same prohibited-signs list independently bars the display technology digital billboards use: item O bans sign faces with "varying light illumination and/or intensity, blinking, bursting, dissolving, distorting, fading, flashing, oscillating, rotating, scrolling, sequencing, shimmering, sparkling, streaming, traveling, tracing, twinkling, simulated movement," and item P separately bans "video, continuous scrolling messages, and animation signs." The one exception the Resolution recognizes for changing displays is Sec. 1203.G's "automatic changeable copy" standard, which applies only to on-premise message boards that hold each static message for at least 8 seconds (30 seconds for anything besides time, date or temperature) and auto-dim for ambient light; it does not reach off-premise billboards, which item N excludes categorically.

Enforcement runs through the Director of Building & Codes under Sec. 1413: a complaint describing an active, ongoing violation goes to that office, and an illegally erected billboard is a misdemeanor exposing the owner to daily fines.