Miami-Dade County, FL Sign Regulations: Garage Sale Signs (2026)

Section 2-103.15(a) sets the baseline: no person may erect any sign within the right-of-way limits of any County-owned right-of-way except as the code provides. Section 2-103.14 defines "sign" broadly enough to cover a poster, placard, display device or advertisement designed to advertise or inform, so a hand-lettered garage sale placard counts the same as a printed one. The only carve-outs in the section are traffic signs approved by the Director of the Public Works Department, which cannot carry commercial advertising, plus bus benches, transit shelters, small waste receptacles, donation meters, newsracks and decorated utility boxes handled under their own permit paragraphs.

A garage sale sign fits none of them.\n\nSubsection (d) lists the specific acts that are unlawful on County-maintained right-of-way. Attaching a sign to a tree so that it penetrates or injures the tree is banned, and writing or graffiti applied directly to a tree counts as a sign. Signs of 22 inches by 28 inches overall or less are banned when secured by non-adhesive means such as a stake, metal rod, rope, nails, thumb tacks, bricks or boulders, and banned again when secured with adhesive material such as tape, glue, duct tape or paste.

Anything larger than 22 inches by 28 inches is illegal regardless of material or method of posting. Banners, pennants and streamers are also illegal in the right-of-way. Together these paragraphs leave no lawful way to post a garage sale sign on County right-of-way, whatever its size or how it is held up.\n\nSubsection (c) gives the Public Works Director power to remove and dispose of any sign placed in violation, and to require the owner, benefactor or erector to remove it at once, repair any damage and replace any tree damaged or destroyed.

Subsection (d) adds that enforcement against the owner, benefactor or erector runs through Chapter 8CC (Code Enforcement), on top of any other remedy.\n\nSubsection (e) addresses who answers for a sign. Names, addresses or phone numbers printed on the sign are sufficient evidence of ownership or beneficial interest. A person charged can rebut that by showing prior, clear and express instruction on lawful locations, or by showing the sign was properly placed and then moved to an unlawful spot without permission, for example with photographs, site maps or a police report of missing signs.\n\nSubsection (i) targets the supply side.

Every retail store selling pre-printed information signs, including garage sale and for-sale or for-lease signs, must post a sign at its cashier or checkout counter, in English, Spanish and Creole, advising that placing such signs in the public right-of-way is illegal and carries a fine of up to $500.00 per violation. First-time violators receive a warning instead of a fine.