Worcester County, MD Sign Regulations: Freeway-Facing Signs (2026)

Section ZS 3-101 of the Worcester County Zoning and Subdivision Control Article, the Outdoor Advertising subtitle adopted by the Board of County Commissioners on 11-3-2009 as part of Bill No. 09-1, bans billboards and similar structures, signs, posters or display advertising of any kind within five hundred feet of U.S. Route 50. The protected stretch runs from the bridge at Herring Creek to the corporate limits of Ocean City, Maryland. The ban reaches any person, firm or corporation that erects or maintains such a sign.

Three carve-outs appear in the same sentence. Nothing in the section applies to a billboard or similar structure erected and in being on July 1, 1943. Nothing prohibits signs advertising any lawful business, roadside service or home occupation conducted upon the premises of an owner of land along the roadway. And nothing prohibits signs advertising the lot or parcel on which the sign is located as for sale or to let, provided the sign contains no other advertising. The printed text also lists articles lawfully manufactured or grown on the owner's premises among the on-premises exceptions.

The next section, § ZS 3-102, applies the same five hundred foot rule along MD Route 611, from the private road running easterly toward the property historically known as the Julia Henry House, c. 1799, south to its intersection with South Point Road and on to the south end of South Point Road. Its grandfather date is June 1, 1957, and it adds an exception for a community or geographic region identification sign approved under § ZS 1-324(g).

The rule is county law for unincorporated Worcester County, Maryland. Signs inside Ocean City, Berlin, Snow Hill or Pocomoke City are governed by those towns' own codes.