Honolulu County, HI Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

Chapter 21 Article 7 of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu, the Land Use Ordinance's sign regulations, requires a permit from the Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) for virtually every sign erected anywhere on Oahu: § 21-7.60(a) makes it 'unlawful for any person to install, construct, erect, alter, relocate, reconstruct... any sign or signs' within the city without first getting that permit and paying the fee it triggers. § 21-7.60(b) then lists ten narrow carve-outs where 'no permit shall be required nor shall district sign regulations apply,' and political campaign signs are the tenth: subdivision (10) reads simply 'Political campaign signs.' The same list exempts subdivision construction signs, gasoline price signs, temporary signs, public signs, flags, plaques, small and address signs, and directional signs, but political signs get the same broad carve-out that waives both the permit and the district-specific size, height, and placement standards Article 7 otherwise imposes by zoning district under § 21-7.40.

The exemption isn't absolute, though. Article 7's flat, chapter-wide prohibitions in § 21-7.30 still apply to political signs the same as any other sign: it remains unlawful to erect a political sign that 'by reason of its size, location, movement, content, coloring, or manner of illumination constitutes a traffic hazard' by obstructing a driver's view or a traffic control device, and a flashing or electronic political sign would still run into § 21-7.30(e)'s ban on flashing signs. Because § 21-7.60(b)(10) sets no size, height, or duration limit specific to campaign signs the way it does for, say, real estate signs (capped at 4 or 8 square feet under the temporary-sign standard) or subdivision signs (capped at 32 square feet for one year), a political sign that runs afoul of the traffic-hazard or flashing-sign prohibitions is enforced the same way any other noncompliant sign is: through the abatement notice process in § 21-7.70.