Tustin, CA Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Tustin City Code Section 9403e5 lists among its permit-exempt signs "seasonal or holiday signs, holiday lights and decorations with no commercial message for one (1) continuous period not to exceed fifty (50) days during any given year." The exemption sits inside Section 9403e, the Sign Permit Requirements chapter's list of signs the Community Development Department does not require a sign permit for, alongside nameplates, flags and real estate signs. Because the fifty-day clock runs once per calendar year as a single continuous period, a homeowner or business that strings lights before Thanksgiving and leaves them up through late January risks tripping the limit before the season even changes.

The same chapter carves out a related but separate allowance for light bulb strings under Section 9403e12, which caps ordinary strings at one hundred bulbs, seven watts each, with six inches of separation, but Section 9403e12(g) is explicit that those wattage and count limits do not apply to decorative holiday lighting permitted under Section 9403e5; holiday displays are regulated on duration, not bulb count or wattage. A display that continues past the fifty-day window is no longer an exempt sign and must either come down or be treated as a permitted sign subject to the standard sign permit process and the prohibited-sign rules of Section 9404, which bars flashing and animated signs outright. Enforcement runs through the Community Development Director under Section 9405, the same office that administers all sign permits, notices and hazardous-sign removals citywide.