Signs · 2026-08-11

Do You Need a Sign Permit in Colorado Springs?

The worst version of this story goes like this. A business signs a lease, orders a beautiful set of lit letters, gets them mounted on a Friday, and hears from a city inspector the following month. Now the sign comes down, the landlord is annoyed, and the money is gone twice.

It's avoidable, and it's not complicated. Here's the shape of it.

The one-sentence rule

If the sign is attached to a building or planted in the ground, assume it needs a permit. If it's on a vehicle, it doesn't.

That single sentence covers most of what small businesses in Colorado Springs actually buy. The details below are where it gets interesting.

Where the rules live

Sign regulations for the city sit in the City of Colorado Springs sign code — the sign code — administered through the city's planning department. It covers what kind of signs are allowed, how many, how big, how tall, how bright, and where.

We're going to do something unusual for a sign company's blog and not quote you dimensions. The code works off tables that vary by zone district, by street frontage, by building size, and by whether you're in an overlay or a form-based zone downtown or in Old Colorado City. A number that's right for a retail pad on Academy is wrong for a shop on Tejon. Anyone who tells you "you get 100 square feet" without knowing your address is guessing.

The city's tables govern, and you should verify your specific address with the city before you order anything. That's not a disclaimer we're hiding behind — it's the actual first step of the job, and it's a step we do for clients.

What generally requires a permit

• Wall signs, including channel letters, lit letter sets, and mounted panels
• Freestanding signs — monument signs, pole signs, pylon signs
• Projecting and blade signs that hang off a building face
• Illuminated signs of any kind. Anything with power in it typically pulls an electrical permit too, separate from the sign permit
• Electronic message centers — the ones that change copy. These get the most scrutiny anywhere, for brightness and animation
• Awning signs with copy printed on them

What generally doesn't

• Vehicle wraps and vehicle lettering. A wrap on a registered, operational vehicle you actually drive for the business is not building signage, and it does not go through the sign permit process. This is one of the quietly great things about wraps: no permit, no zoning question, no waiting. One caveat — a vehicle parked in the same spot as a de facto billboard is a different conversation, and cities do notice.
• Most interior signage that isn't reading out to the street through a window.
• Small incidental signs — hours, address numerals, "no parking," restroom plaques. Categories like these are usually exempt, but exemptions have size limits in the tables, so confirm.

Banners and temporary signs: the trap

Temporary signage is where good businesses get sideways, because everybody assumes "temporary" means "unregulated." It doesn't. Banners, feather flags, inflatables, and A-frames are typically governed by their own rules — how long they can stay up, how many days per year, how many at once, and whether a temporary permit is required first.

If your plan is to hang a grand-opening banner for six weeks and then leave it up because it looks fine, budget for a conversation with a code enforcement officer. Check the temporary sign rules before you print. It costs nothing to ask and it's the cheapest phone call in the project.

Three approvals people forget

The city permit isn't the only gate.

1. Your landlord's sign criteria. Most multi-tenant centers have a written sign criteria document that's stricter than city code — it dictates letter style, height, color, illumination type, sometimes the exact font. It's usually an exhibit attached to your lease. Find it before you design.
2. Your HOA or business improvement district. Especially on the west side and in the newer commercial developments.
3. The building itself. Freestanding signs and larger wall sign packages generally require engineered drawings showing how the thing attaches and how it handles wind load. That's an engineer's stamp, and it takes time.

What this does to your timeline

This is the number that surprises people. Permitting doesn't add days — it adds weeks.

Our published lead time for channel letters is 4 to 8 weeks including permitting, and for a monument sign it's 6 to 12 weeks. That's not slow fabrication. That's survey, drawings, submittal, review, revision, and inspection, and it's honest. If a shop promises you lit letters on the building in ten days, either they've done this exact building before or they're planning to skip a step.

Printed and non-permitted work runs on a completely different clock. Banners, panel signs, decals, and vehicle graphics on our signs catalog ship in about a week.

Who pulls the permit

The sign company usually does, and it should. Pulling a sign permit means producing a site plan, scaled wall drawings, fabrication details, illumination specs, and often a stamped structural drawing. That's a set of documents you shouldn't be assembling on a Saturday.

For permitted work, we handle the survey, arrange the engineered drawings, prepare and submit the permit package, and coordinate the licensed installer who does the mounting and the electrical. You approve the design; we deal with the paperwork.

Before you order anything, do these four things

1. Get your address's zone district and ask the city planning counter what applies to your frontage.
2. Read your lease's sign criteria exhibit. Every word of it.
3. Count your existing signage. Allowances are usually cumulative — the window vinyl you already have may be eating your wall sign budget.
4. Decide illuminated or not early, because it changes the permit path, the electrical scope, and the price.

Get the boring part handled

Tell us the address and what you want on the building through our free assessment. We'll tell you what's likely permittable, what it'll take, and roughly how long, before you spend a dollar on fabrication. If it turns out you need a vehicle wrap instead of a building sign — which happens more often than you'd think, because it's faster and nobody has to approve it — we'll say that too.

This is general guidance, not a code interpretation and not legal advice. Sign regulations change, and the city's tables govern your specific property. Verify with the City of Colorado Springs before ordering.