Santa Barbara County, CA Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

38 (Sign Standards), reenacted by Ordinance No. 5238 effective February 11, 2025, exempts 'Political, Social Issue, and Other Noncommercial Signs' from the permit requirements, sign-count limits, and sign-area limits that apply to commercial signage countywide in the unincorporated area. P frees a resident, candidate committee, or campaign from obtaining a certificate or permit before posting a political or ballot-measure sign, and lets such a sign go up in a required building setback the same as other exempt sign types. The only county-imposed restriction carried in this subsection is a location limit: political signs cannot be placed within the public right-of-way, the same restriction that applies to every exempt sign category.

For everything else, including how long before an election a sign may go up and how quickly it must come down afterward, the code sends the reader to state law: 'Political signs shall conform to the requirements of the California State Code for placement and removal,' meaning the county has deliberately not layered a local timing ordinance on top of the state Elections Code. C separately makes clear that noncommercial signs, including political signs, get the same size and quantity allowances available to commercial signs wherever commercial signage is permitted, and are treated as content-neutral to keep enforcement even-handed between commercial and political speech.