Pitt County, NC Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

Pitt County's Outdoor Advertising Sign Ordinance, Planning & Development Services Ordinance No. 7 (adopted May 2, 1988), regulates billboards and other off-premises 'outdoor advertising signs' along freeways and highways in the unincorporated county. Section 1's definition of 'outdoor advertising sign' carves out several categories from that regulatory scheme, including on-premises business identification signs, temporary political signs, directional signs of twenty square feet or less, official signs, and highway or historic markers. Because a temporary political sign is not an 'outdoor advertising sign' under this ordinance, it does not need the sign permit that Section 8 requires from the County Building Inspections Department, and it is not subject to the ordinance's size caps of 400 square feet, its 35-foot height limit, its 500-foot separation from residences, churches, schools or public institutions, or the sliding setback table in Section 28.

Unlike the 20-square-foot cap that applies to directional signs, the ordinance sets no size limit specific to political signs themselves; the exemption simply removes them from this ordinance's coverage. Section 4 limits the ordinance's jurisdiction to unincorporated areas of Pitt County outside any municipality's corporate limits or extraterritorial jurisdiction, so the exemption has no bearing inside Greenville, Winterville, Ayden, or Farmville, each of which administers its own sign regulations. S. S. 153A-357. The chief building inspector administers the ordinance under Section 6.