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

Sec. for any person, firm, corporation, or other legal entity to erect, permit or maintain any sign' within a 'protected area,' defined as all property within 500 feet of the right-of-way of the Lee Roy Selman Expressway (subsection (a)(3)). The prohibition attaches as soon as the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority designates the land as expressway right-of-way. Exceptions are narrow: temporary signs oriented to a non-expressway street and set back at least 100 feet from the expressway right-of-way (subsection (c)(1)), capped at 100 square feet; on-site business signs oriented to the street serving the business's principal entrance, with building signs within 200 feet of the expressway confined mostly to the entrance wall and capped at 80 square feet on a secondary wall (subsection (c)(2)); and off-site signs, which must stay at least 200 feet from the expressway right-of-way, cannot exceed 15 by 50 feet, must sit at least 300 feet from another off-site sign, and are barred within 100 feet of a church, school, cemetery, park, playground, or state/national forest (subsection (c)(3)).

Detached signs in the protected area are capped at 25 feet in height above average grade, and roof signs at 10 feet above the roofline. Signs predating the section could remain only until March 1, 1986, and subsection (e) bars any variance from the section's limits altogether.