For RSA keys, is the safety of a given key-length different for signing vs encryption? I'm wondering if considerations of key-length are different when thinking about signing vs encryption. If for some reason, it was safter to use smaller keys for signing that would be interesting.
No, the security is about identical, as the underlying RSA problem is the same.

Besides that, non-repudiation is usually managed differently with regards to legal requirements. Providing confidentiality (encryption) is a rather different use case than non-repudiation (signing a contract).

It is also possible to use signatures for authentication rather than non-repudiation. In that case you may be able to get away with smaller signatures if the authentication and key is only valid for a limited amount of time.

All in all, the key strength should be considered given the use cases, threat model and of course the system parameters. Defining a minimum RSA key size without considering the system is not a good idea.



Notes:


It could be possible to assign a notary that immediately signs the document after signature generation by the other party. The notary should of course use a key of sufficient strength.
I've used the notion of a larger key, but what you're really after is a stronger key. Usually larger keys are stronger for the same algorithm though.
If you go over a 16Ki key size then the key size doesn't matter much anymore. The key will only be broken if RSA itself is broken (e.g. using a hugely powerfull Quantum Computer).