Winter Haven, FL Sign Regulations: Holiday Displays (2026)

Sec. 21-243 exempts a defined list of signs from every provision of Article IV's sign regulations except construction and safety rules, and subsection (f) covers holiday displays: holiday lights and decorations are exempt provided the items are removed no later than thirty days after the holiday being celebrated, and religious displays erected on church grounds are exempt without any stated time limit. Because this exemption sits under the same article that otherwise requires a permit for constructed, altered or extended signs under Sec. 21-241(c), a resident or business does not need to apply for anything before putting up string lights, wreaths, inflatables or other seasonal decorations tied to a specific holiday.

The thirty-day clock is the only real condition Winter Haven attaches to the exemption: it runs from the holiday itself, not from installation, so decorations that go up weeks before a holiday can still stay in place afterward as long as they come down inside that thirty-day window. The exemption is content-specific to a holiday celebration rather than general seasonal decor, which is why the code separately calls out church-grounds religious displays rather than folding them into the same thirty-day clock, leaving those displays without an explicit removal deadline in this subsection.