Oconee County, SC Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Sec. 32-520 does not carve out a separate category for digital or electronic message boards; it regulates every billboard, whatever its technology, through the same general prohibition. Subsection (a) limits new construction to the four excepted categories defined in Sec. 32-519: I-85 visibility, government ownership, pre-Aug. 18, 2020 existence, or a sign under 33 square feet and under ten feet tall. Subsection (f) strips even that small-sign exemption from permitting the moment the sign is illuminated, so a small digital display still needs a sign permit under Sec.

32-528 that a static sign of the same size would not. Subsection (c) caps the sign area of any billboard, digital or not, at 672 square feet, and subsection (e) lets an owner replace an existing billboard's face for a content change, such as swapping to a digital panel, without a new permit only if the square footage does not increase. Subsection (d) bars any billboard, including a digital one, from a federal, state, or county-designated scenic highway. Because the sign definitions in Sec. 32-519 apply present-tense language to future technology and the county has adopted no digital-specific carve-out, a new freestanding digital billboard built for general advertising in the unincorporated county has to clear the same excepted-billboard test as any static board, which in practice keeps large-scale digital billboards out except on I-85 frontage or government property.