“One thing to look for when purchasing outdoor Christmas lights is that the lights you’re selecting are outdoor rated,” explains Lance Allen, Decorative Holiday Merchant at The Home Depot. Look for a certification from Underwriters Laboratories Inc., commonly abbreviated as UL to ensure the lights have undergone rigorous testing to confirm they are outdoor-safe. Here, the best outdoor Christmas lights. These commercial-grade LED lights feature 100 5mm wide-angle bulbs per 33-foot strand, and the lights are mounted on green wire and each wrapped with weatherproof material. During testing, we were impressed by their bright and consistent light, which is amplified by the bulb shape, and they stood up to heavy rain and wind with no problems. These lights are both UL- and wet-rated, but the one downside is that you can only connect three strands together on one outlet. Price at time of publish: $18 Our tester thought these lights were of average brightness, and she liked the traditional appearance of the warm mini lights. She notes that they have a slight strobing effect, which is caused by a lack of rectifiers on the LEDs, but said it’s not as noticeable when they’re actually hung up. These lights aren’t commercial-grade, which means there’s always the possibility that moisture will get into the bulbs, but they’re a great value if you’re decorating on a budget. Price at time of publish: $25 These colored Christmas lights are UL-certified, and during our testing, they held up perfectly through several days of heavy rain and winds. They have a “Stay Lit” design that prevents the whole strand from going dark if one bulb burns out, but our tester did note that the construction isn’t quite as durable as other options. You can connect up to 30 strands on one outlet—ideal for decorating your house or yard—and the lights come with six spare bulbs and two fuses, allowing you to repair any issues quickly and easily. Price at time of publish: $34 These large lights come in several lengths, and the 100-foot strand includes 100 bulbs. However, the bulbs and wires are packaged separately, forcing you to screw in each of the bulbs by hand. The lights are available in a variety of colors, and they even feature a clip on each socket, which makes them extremely easy to hang along your roofline. Price at time of publish: $70 Our tester loved the bright colors of these lights, and she also liked that there are eight lighting effects to choose from, such as chasing, slow fade, and twinkling. The indoor/outdoor lights are waterproof and held up just fine in inclement weather, and you can connect up to four of the strands together, covering more than 400 feet. Price at time of publish: $26 Our tester found that these lights were quite tricky to set up, as the snowflakes get quite tangled in the wire. However, once they were installed, she loved the pretty white light, even though it was not the brightest. The lights turn on automatically at dusk, and on cloudy or overcast days when the solar panel doesn’t get enough light, they do dim down after a few hours. Price at time of publish: $15 As you might suspect, these lights aren’t the brightest option out there, and our tester noted that they’re particularly dim when the weather is cloudy or rainy. The lights automatically turn on at dusk and stay on for up to eight hours, and they offer both solid or flashing light modes, which can be controlled from the back of the panel. However, the strand has a 12-foot lead wire, which our tester thought was unnecessarily long, as it cuts the lighted length down to 56 feet. Price at time of publish: $25 Our reviewer said these outdoor lights were the brightest of all the products she tested, and she loved that you’re able to cut them down into a shorter length if desired. However, the instructions for these lights are extremely poor, so it may take some trial and error to figure out how to connect strands, and the brand notes that the power cords and connectors aren’t waterproof. Finally, a word of caution: Make sure to completely remove the lights from the spool before plugging them in, as the PVC can melt if it gets warm—a lesson our tester learned the hard way. Price at time of publish: $74 The Pro Christmas lights are 35 feet long and feature 50 5mm bulbs on green wire, and you can connect a whopping 60 strands end-to-end on one outlet. They’re UL-rated for outdoor use and held up great during rainstorms and windy days during testing. These outdoor Christmas lights come in a variety of color schemes, and while you’re not able to replace the one-piece bulbs, each LED light can last for up to 75,000 hours. Price at time of publish: $16 When reviewing outdoor Christmas lights, our tester considered brightness, quality, length of the lights, and ease of installation and ranked each attribute on a scale of 1-5 (the more points, the better). She draped them along outdoor railings or Christmas trees and made sure to leave the lights plugged in for the entire time she tested them. After weeks of seeing how each one fared outdoors, our tester carefully selected her favorites.
What to Look for in Outdoor Christmas Lights
Outdoor-Rated
Look for words such as UL-certified, UL-listed, or commercial grade when picking out the perfect outdoor Christmas lights. This information is typically in the product description, and you can also find it on the product tag, which is usually a sticker attached to the wire. This ensures the lights are waterproof and won’t rush, spark, or burn out when used outside. It also helps to look for the word “waterproof” when shopping, as seen in our Pro Christmas option.
Bulb Type
Those aren’t the only benefits, either: “Traditionally, incandescent bulbs are dipped for coloring, which results in the sun fading the colors in just one season,” says Matthew Martoccio, founder of The Christmas Guys. “With LEDs, you actually have the diodes colored the same as the bulb, so you do not see the fading occur from year to year nearly as much, if at all.”
Bulb Shape
Christmas lights come in all different shapes and sizes, and while this choice is mostly based on personal preference, Martoccio recommends certain bulb sizes for different outdoor applications. “In general, never use mini lights on a roofline,” he says. “For roof lines and evergreen trees 20 feet and over, you want the larger C9 LED bulbs. For bushes, branch wraps, and evergreens under 20 feet, you can use mini lights.”
Durability
Outdoor Christmas lights are frequently subject to rain, snow, wind, and cold temperatures, so it’s important that they’re durable enough to withstand winter weather. Many of our experts recommend looking for professional- or commercial-grade Christmas lights (which often aren’t sold at big-name retailers), as these lights are made from higher quality materials. Further, many professional-grade lights feature one-piece bulbs and sockets, which prevent moisture, dirt, and dust from getting inside and causing the light to fail.
Why Trust The Spruce?
This article was written by Camryn Rabideau, a freelance writer and product tester who has been contributing to The Spruce since 2017. While researching outdoor Christmas lights, she consulted with several experts, including Lance Allen, Decorative Holiday Merchant at The Home Depot, and Matthew Martoccio, founder of The Christmas Guys. Using their recommendations, she selected more than a dozen sets of outdoor Christmas lights for firsthand testing, and she displayed them outdoors at her home over the course of several weeks, including during heavy rain and wind. She evaluated each product’s performance based on brightness, durability, ease of use, and more before selecting the top-performing lights to include in this list. However, installing outdoor lights on your home can be more complex. Gutter or shingle clips are a popular option for hanging lights along the roofline, or you can use Q-hangers for other locations. Many of these clips are discrete enough that you can simply leave them on your home year-round, saving you the hassle of putting them back up each holiday season.
