Spalding County, GA Sign Regulations: Digital Billboards (2026)

Spalding County's sign ordinance doesn't have a standalone 'digital billboard' or 'electronic message sign' category. Instead, Article 7 (Appendix E) bans the three features that make a sign digital: Sec. 220 defines a flashing sign as one whose illumination isn't kept constant, or that shows sudden or marked lighting changes, and Article 7(E) prohibits flashing signs outright, with no exception listed. Article 7(A) similarly prohibits animated signs, unless the animation is authorized as part of a freestanding sign, and Article 7(F) prohibits illuminated signs except as authorized elsewhere in the ordinance.

The one place the ordinance opens a door is Sec. 221's freestanding-sign rule, which lets a freestanding sign use changeable copy, meaning a sign capable of changing its displayed message electronically, but caps how much of that sign can be changeable, animated or illuminated at fifty percent of the freestanding sign's face. Even that carve-out is constrained by Sec. 510's illumination standards, which bar strobe lights or bulbs over seventy-five watts, require light to be shielded from glaring onto adjacent property or traffic, and confine neon lighting to the C-1, C-1B and C-1C districts as a window sign only.

Put together, the ordinance leaves no lawful path for a full digital billboard, a general advertising sign that's mostly or wholly an electronic display, anywhere in unincorporated Spalding County; only a limited changeable-copy component of an otherwise conventional freestanding sign is authorized.