Okaloosa County, FL Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

LDC § 8.02.02 governs every permanent off-site sign, the code's term for a billboard, and layers highway-facing spacing rules on top of general size and placement limits. Off-site signs are permitted in only four zoning districts, AA, C-2, C-3 and I-1, so a billboard cannot go up in a residential or most other commercial or industrial district regardless of spacing. Each sign face is capped at 400 square feet including border and trim, and the structure's height must run at least 15 feet and no more than 45 feet from grade, measured at the bottom and top of the sign respectively.

Setback comes next: an off-site sign needs 20 feet from the nearest street, road or highway right-of-way line, 45 feet from a right-of-way intersection point, and ten feet from any other property line. Then comes the highway-facing spacing table that separates this section from ordinary on-site signage: signs on the same side of an ordinary street need 500 feet between them; that jumps to 1,000 feet between signs on the same side of a federal aid primary highway, and to 1,500 feet between signs on the same side of an interstate highway. The tighter the road's traffic classification, the further apart the code forces competing billboards to sit.

Before the planning and inspection department will issue a county sign permit, LDC § 8.02.02(6) requires the applicant to first obtain any permit needed from other agencies, citing Chapter 479, Florida Statutes, Florida's outdoor advertising law, which separately regulates signs visible from the interstate and federal aid highway systems that cross the county.