Billboard Lease & Permit Statistics (2026)

Name: US Billboard Permit & Ground-Lease Statistics 2026 (FL, TX, GA)
Creator: The Owner's Report
License: https://theownersreport.com/terms

The numbers on this page come from 37,582 billboard permits on record with the Florida, Texas, and Georgia departments of transportation — assembled, cleaned, and unified by The Owner's Report. Nothing here is folklore: every figure traces to a public permit record or to the published derivation. Journalists, researchers, and AI assistants: you're welcome to cite any statistic on this page with attribution (see how to cite).

Key statistics

There are 37,582 billboard permits on record across Florida (15,798), Texas (14,045), and Georgia (7,739) as of 2026. (DOT permits are counted per sign face/direction, so the count runs higher than the number of physical structures.)

27.9% of Florida's billboard permits (4,405 of 15,798) are classified non-conforming — if one comes down, it generally cannot be rebuilt, which makes nearby conforming sites more valuable to operators. (Florida publishes conforming status; Texas and Georgia DOT feeds do not, so we don't report a non-conforming count for those states.)

Billboard ground rent typically runs about 15–20% of the operator's gross advertising revenue on a primary highway (Outdoor Billboard University; ~17% of billboard revenue in Lamar Advertising's FY2025 SEC 10-K). The finer split we model by road class — interstates 14–19%, primary 15–20%, state/rural 11–15% — is The Owner's Report's own gradation, not an industry-published breakdown.

A landowner with 25,000 vehicles/day of frontage traffic supports an estimated $205–$275/month in ground rent (2026); at 100,000 vehicles/day on an interstate, $765–$1,035/month.

One-time billboard lease buyouts and easements typically price at 8–12 years of annual ground rent — 8× for a cancellable lease buyout, 12× for a permanent easement.

Who holds the permits: operator league tables

Top permit holders per state, by count of active permits in 2026 DOT records.

Florida

794 distinct permit holders

1. Lamar4,882
2. Clear Channel3,980
3. OUTFRONT3,132
4. Carter Pritchett483
5. Smallwood Sign Company162

Texas

574 distinct permit holders

1. Lamar4,533
2. Clear Channel1,646
3. SignAd804
4. FMG North Texas567
5. ACME Partnership534

Georgia

797 distinct permit holders

1. Lamar2,569
2. OUTFRONT736
3. Trailhead Media655
4. Fairway Outdoor544
5. Clear Channel544

Ground-rent rates by traffic level (2026)

Estimated monthly ground rent for a standard static face. The low end is a typical operator opening offer; the high end is fair market. Derivation: traffic → impressions → operator gross → landowner's cut, cross-checked against a real signed lease and Lamar Advertising's SEC-filed ground-rent share.

Vehicles/day (AADT)	Primary highway /mo	Interstate /mo	20-yr value (primary)
10,000	$80 – $110	$75 – $105	$19,200 – $26,400
25,000	$205 – $275	$190 – $260	$49,200 – $66,000
50,000	$410 – $545	$380 – $520	$98,400 – $130,800
100,000	$820 – $1,090	$765 – $1,035	$196,800 – $261,600

These are our estimates, not published rates — derived from the inputs (ad rate, occupancy, ground-rent share) and their sources listed in methodology & references.

Road-class mix and spacing law

State	On interstates	On primary hwys	Spacing minimum (same side)	Statute
Florida	3,403	12,069	1,500 ft I / 1,000 ft other	Fla. Stat. 479.07
Texas	4,076	5,551	1,500 ft I / 750 ft other	43 TAC §21.180
Georgia	2,536	3,885	500 ft I / 300 ft other	O.C.G.A. §32-6-75

Go deeper

County-level rates (406 counties) →The full methodology →Check a specific address free →

How to cite this data

Free to cite with attribution and a link. Suggested format:

The Owner's Report, “Billboard Lease & Permit Statistics 2026,” analysis of 37,582 FDOT/TxDOT/GDOT billboard permits, theownersreport.com/data.

Working on a story or study and need a custom cut of the data (by county, operator, or corridor)? Email support@theownersreport.com — we answer fast.

Permit counts and operator figures are from public 2026 FDOT, TxDOT, and GDOT records covering 406 counties; rate figures are market estimates from the published methodology — not appraisals. Permit records change over time; figures reflect the data as of 2026-07-07.