Memphis, TN Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Section 4.9.2.D of the Memphis and Shelby County Unified Development Code lists nine categories of signs allowed in every zoning district without a sign permit, and item 5 covers temporary holiday decorations: displays "used to celebrate a single holiday or season," provided the decoration carries no commercial message of any type. That single condition does the real work. A string of lights, an inflatable snowman, or a lit wreath is exempt because it marks a holiday and says nothing about a business. The same object with a company name or "Sale" banner attached loses the exemption and falls under the standard permit and size rules in Article 4.9, the same rules that govern wall signs, detached signs, and window graphics elsewhere in the section.

The exemption is from the permit only, not from every rule in the chapter: the introductory paragraph of Section 4.9.2.D specifies that any exempt sign or decoration that is electrified requires a separate electrical permit before it is plugged in, so a homeowner stringing lights across a porch still needs to pull that permit even though no sign permit applies. The ordinance does not set a fixed number of days a holiday display may remain up; instead, the display's legality is tied to the holiday or season it celebrates, meaning a display left up well past the relevant holiday can be treated as no longer serving that exempt purpose. The provision applies citywide because the UDC is the joint zoning code that the Memphis City Council itself adopted (Ordinance No. 5367), not a county-only rule limited to unincorporated Shelby County.