Plano, TX Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Article XI's illumination, luminance, and shielding standards apply to every outdoor fixture in Plano, except that the code carves out two specific breaks for holiday and seasonal lighting. Sec. 6-470(a) lists affirmative defenses to prosecution under the article, and subsection (3) names "The lighting is temporary holiday lighting on private property" as one of them, alongside government lighting on rights-of-way, emergency lighting, and shielded school recreational lighting. An affirmative defense doesn't exempt the lighting outright; it gives the resident a defense to raise if cited, on the basis that the display is genuinely temporary and tied to a holiday, rather than a year-round installation dressed up as festive.

Separately, Sec. 6-471(a) lists permanent exemptions from the article altogether, and subsection (3) fully exempts "Seasonal decorative street lighting", the city's own holiday displays on public streets, from Article XI entirely, a stronger protection than the affirmative-defense status given to a homeowner's yard lights. Neither section attaches a specific date range or day count to what counts as "temporary" holiday lighting; that determination is made case by case rather than by a fixed calendar window. That's a different mechanism from the 14-day temporary exemption process in Sec.

6-471(b), which exists for commercial, industrial, and institutional businesses seeking short-term relief from the lighting standards and is capped at two two-week periods per year, not aimed at residential holiday decorating at all.