Fence laws in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
What the Palm Beach Gardens municipal code says about fences, one topic at a time, with the section number and a link to the document behind every line. Where Palm Beach Gardens sets no rule of its own, the Florida rule is shown in its place and marked as such.
Fence laws in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, question by question
The short version
- Who pays on the line
- Palm Beach Gardens has no statute splitting the cost of a fence on the boundary. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide this one.
- How tall
- Six feet in a Palm Beach Gardens residential district, eight for the perimeter of a residential planned unit development, and eight in any nonresidential district, and the answer turns on the district, whether the fence is forward of the building setback, and what it encloses. The figure is 6 feet, for fence or wall in a residential district.
- Permits
- The planning, zoning and appeals board in Palm Beach Gardens may grant a variance to fence or wall height in any district, and the code adds four circumstances it may weigh on top of the ordinary variance test.
- Pool barriers
- Florida requires a pool barrier at least four feet high, measured on the outside. The figure is 4 feet, for residential swimming pool barrier, measured on the outside.
- Spite fences
- Palm Beach Gardens has no spite fence statute. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide this one.
- Measured from what
- Palm Beach Gardens measures a fence or wall from the average elevation of the property line where it is going in, and says in the same sentence that landscape berms and other means of raising the elevation count toward the height.
- Corner lots
- On a Palm Beach Gardens corner lot the triangle is struck from the intersecting street centerlines rather than the property lines, closed by a line joining the street lines twenty five feet from the intersection, and the clear band runs from two and a half feet to eight feet above the crown of the road. The figure is 25 feet, for distance from the intersection that closes the triangle.
- Retaining walls
- Florida statute names a wall that holds back earth in one place, and it is about how many permits a town can charge for. It reaches a house, a duplex or a townhouse only.
- Materials
- Chain link in Palm Beach Gardens has to be vinyl coated in black or dark green, and the rule is written to exclude single family and duplex dwellings, which are left to use bare chain link, and the answer turns on the district and the type of dwelling. The figure is 3 strands, for barbed wire allowed at the top of an industrial fence.
- Livestock
- Barbed wire is prohibited in Palm Beach Gardens residential districts and in the PDA district unless the land is in permitted agricultural use, and it is available in the AR and AE districts only alongside a bona fide agriculture operation, where it also has to stand at least twenty five feet inside any property line. The figure is 25 feet, for setback for an agricultural barbed wire fence.
Who owns the fence between two properties in Palm Beach Gardens?
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Palm Beach Gardens law has no rule about this. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide it instead.
Florida has no law about splitting the cost of a fence on a boundary. Chapter 588 is about legal fences and livestock, and every section in it deals with fence strength, posted land and impounding animals. Chapter 704, which covers easements and rights of entry, says nothing about a boundary fence either. In Florida the split is whatever the two neighbors agree to.
This one is Florida law, not Palm Beach Gardens law. All Florida findings
Documents read before writing that:
- Fla. Stat. ch. 588The Florida Senate
- Fla. Stat. ch. 704The Florida Senate
How tall can a fence be in Palm Beach Gardens?
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this, but the answer changes depending on the district, whether the fence is forward of the building setback, and what it encloses.
Six feet in a Palm Beach Gardens residential district, eight for the perimeter of a residential planned unit development, and eight in any nonresidential district. In both cases nothing may go forward of the established front building setback line. The AR and AE districts are the exception that allows a front yard fence at all, at four feet. Sports fencing has its own tier: fifteen feet for tennis, racquetball, baseball and softball, ten for any other athletic facility, with backstops exempt from the height rules and fences inside the city’s own athletic facilities exempt from the section.
Fences and walls in residentially zoned districts may be erected and maintained to a maximum height of six (6) feet. However, perimeter fencing and walls for residential PUDs may be erected and maintained to a maximum height of eight (8) feet. Fences or walls shall not be erected forward of the established or existing front building setback lines.
The answer turns on the district, whether the fence is forward of the building setback, and what it encloses.
- a residential district
- Six feet, and nothing forward of the front building setback. 6 ft
- the perimeter of a residential PUD, or any nonresidential district
- Eight feet. 8 ft
- a front setback in the AR or AE districts
- Four feet, and a fence is allowed there at all. 4 ft
- tennis, racquetball, baseball or softball fencing
- Fifteen feet, with other athletic facilities at ten. 15 ft
Also on fence height in Palm Beach Gardens
- no rule, documents checkedFlorida sets no statewide limit on how tall a fence at a house can be. The only height in the fence chapter is the five foot floor that makes a fence a legal fence for holding livestock, which is a minimum for farm land and not a cap for a yard. The permit statute names no height either. Height comes from city and county ordinance. Fla. Stat. ch. 588Florida · Statute
Do I need a permit for a fence in Palm Beach Gardens?
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
The planning, zoning and appeals board in Palm Beach Gardens may grant a variance to fence or wall height in any district, and the code adds four circumstances it may weigh on top of the ordinary variance test. Three are about what the land sits against: a limited access highway or a railroad right of way, a public or private road right of way, or an area used or maintained in an obnoxious manner. The fourth is squarely about the neighbors, allowing the board to consider that the abutting area is an eyesore or a nuisance, while reserving to the board the finding that it is one.
When property abuts an area which is considered an eyesore or nuisance to an abutting property owner. However, the BZA shall determine that the use of property shall be obnoxious or when use of property shall constitute an eyesore or nuisance.
Also on permits in Palm Beach Gardens
- set in state lawFlorida runs one building code for the whole state and makes a permit the default for building work. The statute itself says nothing about fences. It does force a local government to skip the permit for work on a single family home worth under $7,500. The fence exemption by height is in the Florida Building Code, not in the statute. Fla. Stat. 553.79(1)(a)Florida · Statute
Pool fence requirements in Palm Beach Gardens
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Florida answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Florida requires a pool barrier at least four feet high, measured on the outside. The same section bars gaps or footholds that let a small child get under, through or over it. The barrier has to ring the pool itself and has to be separate from a yard fence, unless that yard fence runs along the pool and meets the same rules. Gates swing away from the pool and latch on their own.
This one is Florida law, not Palm Beach Gardens law. All Florida findings
The barrier must be at least 4 feet high on the outside.
4 ftresidential swimming pool barrier, measured on the outside
Spite fence laws in Palm Beach Gardens
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Palm Beach Gardens law has no rule about this. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide it instead.
Florida has no spite fence law. The fence chapter sets no height that sets anything off and no rule about why a fence went up. Chapter 823, the public nuisance chapter, runs from bonfires to abandoned boats and never reaches a fence built to annoy a neighbor. A claim in Florida rests on common law nuisance instead, which is judge made rather than written by the legislature.
This one is Florida law, not Palm Beach Gardens law. All Florida findings
Documents read before writing that:
- Fla. Stat. ch. 588The Florida Senate
- Fla. Stat. ch. 823The Florida Senate
How fence height is measured in Palm Beach Gardens
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Palm Beach Gardens measures a fence or wall from the average elevation of the property line where it is going in, and says in the same sentence that landscape berms and other means of raising the elevation count toward the height. Building the ground up therefore buys nothing, and taking the average along the line stops a single low or high spot deciding the answer.
The height of fences and walls, including landscape berms and other means of increasing elevation, shall be measured from the average elevation of the property line where the improvements are to be installed.
Also on how height is measured in Palm Beach Gardens
- set in state lawFlorida answers the measuring question outright in its oldest fence section. A general fence stands at least five feet and keeps its gaps under four inches for the first two feet up from the ground. Where the fence is built with a trench beside it, those five feet run from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the fence. A bottom point and a top point, both named, which is the part most state fence rules leave out. The rule is about holding livestock. A yard fence in a Florida city is sized by local land development rules adopted under section 163.3202, and those rules carry their own way of measuring. Fla. Stat. 588.01Florida · Statute
Fence rules for corner lots in Palm Beach Gardens
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
On a Palm Beach Gardens corner lot the triangle is struck from the intersecting street centerlines rather than the property lines, closed by a line joining the street lines twenty five feet from the intersection, and the clear band runs from two and a half feet to eight feet above the crown of the road. Reading the height off the road crown rather than off the ground means a lot sitting above the street loses some of the allowance.
On a corner lot, fences, walls, hedges, structures, or plantings, or other obstructions to vision shall not be placed between the heights of 2½ feet and eight feet above the crown of the road within the triangular area formed by the intersecting street centerlines and a straight line joining the street lines at points which are 25 feet distant from the point of the intersection.
25 ftdistance from the intersection that closes the triangle
Also on corner visibility in Palm Beach Gardens
- set in state lawFlorida has a state rule about blocking a driver from seeing what is coming, and it is written about signs. Chapter 479 bans a sign on the inside of a curve, or placed any way that could keep road users from seeing approaching vehicles, next to a state highway or a federal aid primary road. Section 337.406 adds that using a state road right of way in a way that gets in the way of traffic is unlawful. Neither one draws a triangle on a corner lot. That is left to local land development rules. Fla. Stat. 479.11Florida · Traffic code
Retaining wall rules in Palm Beach Gardens
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Florida answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Florida statute names a wall that holds back earth in one place, and it is about how many permits a town can charge for. When one wall runs across more than one lot, the local government has to issue a single permit for the whole job and cannot demand one for each lot the wall crosses. The rule is written for houses, duplexes and townhouses. It sets no height and it does not say how the wall has to be built.
This one is Florida law, not Palm Beach Gardens law. All Florida findings
If a retaining wall spans more than one lot or parcel, a local government that issues building permits must issue a permit for a retaining wall for the project as a whole and may not require a building permit for each lot or parcel upon which a retaining wall is installed on the property of a single-family or two-family residential dwelling or a townhouse.
Also on retaining walls in Palm Beach Gardens
- left to the townThe height at which a wall that holds back earth needs a permit is not in Florida statute. It is in the Florida Building Code, which the Florida Building Commission rewrites every three years from the newest International Building Code and International Residential Code. Once the commission adopts it, that code applies across the state with no vote by any city or county, and a local government may only make it stricter. Fla. Stat. 553.73(7)(a)Florida · Statute
Fence materials allowed in Palm Beach Gardens
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this, but the answer changes depending on the district and the type of dwelling.
Chain link in Palm Beach Gardens has to be vinyl coated in black or dark green, and the rule is written to exclude single family and duplex dwellings, which are left to use bare chain link. Barbed wire is allowed only in industrial districts or the industrial part of a planned development, at no more than three horizontal or vertical strands, and it has to sit inside the fence’s permitted height rather than on top of it. Razor wire, concertina wire and similar material are prohibited unless the planning, zoning and appeals board allows them under the variance section.
Chain-link fences shall be vinyl coated, utilizing black or dark green colors, excluding single-family and duplex dwelling units.
The answer turns on the district and the type of dwelling.
- anything other than a single family or duplex dwelling
- Chain link vinyl coated in black or dark green.
- an industrial district or the industrial part of a PUD or PCD
- Up to three strands of barbed wire, inside the permitted height. 3 strands
- razor or concertina wire
- Prohibited unless the appeals board allows it.
Also on materials in Palm Beach Gardens
- set in state lawFlorida describes its legal fence by the wire it uses. The fence stands at least three feet tall with three or more strands of barbed or other soft wire on supports no more than twenty feet apart. Battens let the supports stand farther apart, and an electric fence built with high tensile wire gets the widest spacing of all. Fla. Stat. 588.011Florida · Statute
Livestock and boundary fence law in Palm Beach Gardens
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Palm Beach Gardens answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.
Barbed wire is prohibited in Palm Beach Gardens residential districts and in the PDA district unless the land is in permitted agricultural use, and it is available in the AR and AE districts only alongside a bona fide agriculture operation, where it also has to stand at least twenty five feet inside any property line. Electrified fencing is narrower still: accessory to a bona fide agriculture operation only, designed and maintained not to injure anyone, attached inside or fully surrounded on the outward face by a non-electrified fence of at least six feet with a gap between four and eight inches, and signed to the ISO-3864 standard within ten feet of every corner and at no more than forty five feet apart.
Barbed wire fences in conjunction with Bona Fide Agriculture operations must be setback a minimum of 25 feet from any property line.
25 ftsetback for an agricultural barbed wire fence
Also on agricultural fencing in Palm Beach Gardens
- set in state lawFlorida sets a legal fence at three feet high, made of barbed or other soft wire, with at least three strands pulled tight on posts, trees or other supports no more than twenty feet apart. With battens the supports may stand up to sixty feet apart for a plain fence and one hundred fifty feet for an electric one built with high tensile wire. Any other material that meets about the same specs counts, and gates are built to the same standard. Fla. Stat. 588.011Florida · Statute
- set in state lawFlorida runs one livestock law over the whole state, and holding the animals in is the owner's job. An owner who lets livestock run loose or stray onto a public road pays for all the injury and property damage that follows. Section 588.25 leaves county laws in place where they already require livestock to be penned, and fills the gap where they do not. Fla. Stat. 588.15Florida · Statute
Documents behind this page
10 documents, of which 1 was published by Palm Beach Gardens itself. Each was read on the date shown.
- The Florida Senate2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 588, Legal Fences and Livestock at Large
- The Florida Senate2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 704, Easements
- The Florida LegislatureThe 2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 553, Part IV, Florida Building Code
- City of Palm Beach GardensCode of Ordinances, Land Development Regulations, Chapter 78, Article V, Division 1, Section 78-186, Yards
- The Florida LegislatureThe 2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 515, Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act
- The Florida Senate2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 823, Public Nuisances
- The Florida Senate2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 479, Outdoor Advertising, Section 479.11, Specified signs prohibited
- The Florida LegislatureThe 2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 553, Part IV, Florida Building Code
- The Florida LegislatureThe 2026 Florida Statutes, Chapter 553, Part IV, Florida Building Code
- Florida LegislatureThe 2025 Florida Statutes, Title XLV, Chapter 588, Legal Fences and Livestock at Large
What this page does not cover
A city ordinance is not the only rule that reaches a fence. The zoning district a parcel sits in can change the height allowed on it, and so can an overlay district, a recorded easement, a fire hazard severity zone or a coastal zone. A homeowner association can be stricter than the city and nothing in the municipal code will say so. None of those appear here.
The rules above are the ones Palm Beach Gardens publishes, plus the Florida rules that apply where the city sets none. Fence laws in Florida has the state layer in full.
This is general information drawn from published government documents. It is not legal advice, ordinances are amended, and the date beside each finding is the date the document was read. How findings are made · What the terms mean