Yavapai County, AZ Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Yavapai County's Sign Code, Section 601 of the Planning and Zoning Ordinance for the Unincorporated Areas, sets district-by-district height limits for free-standing signs and then carves out a taller allowance near freeway interchanges. The ordinance's Definitions section describes an "Interstate Freeway Interchange" as the area "within three-hundred feet (300') of the federal right-of-way and between the two (2) points of widening of the interstate highway right-of-way approaching the interchange," covering the county's I-17 and I-40 interchange areas outside the incorporated cities.

In the C1 Light Commercial District, Section 601.F.1.d caps free-standing signs at twelve feet, "except that free-standing signs at Interstate Freeway Interchanges (see Definitions) in the C1 Zoning District shall not exceed a height of thirty feet (30')." The C2 Medium Commercial District (Section 601.G.1.d) and the C3, M1 and M2 Industrial Districts (Section 601.H.1.d) carry the same structure at a fifteen-foot base height, again raised to thirty feet at an interchange. The height bonus applies only to the one free-standing sign allowed under each district's aggregate sign-area formula (one square foot per linear foot of street frontage, capped between 96 and 160 square feet depending on the district); it does not create a separate freeway billboard category. Off-premise advertising signs (billboards) remain governed separately by Section 601.D, which caps them at twenty feet regardless of interchange proximity and requires 1,000-foot separation from the property advertised and 1,500-foot spacing between billboards. A sign permit under Section 601.L is still required before any interchange-area free-standing sign is erected, interchange height or not.