Spain’s Tax Authority Spent Eight Years Trying to Prove Shakira Committed Fraud and a Court Just Said They Were Wrong

Spain’s tax authority has been ordered to return approximately 60 million euros to Shakira after the Audiencia Nacional ruled that the Colombian singer was wrongly charged taxes and penalties related to her 2011 world tour, bringing a measure of resolution to one of the most public and prolonged tax disputes in the history of Spanish entertainment law.

The ruling came down this Monday, and Shakira did not hold back in her response. “There was never any fraud, and the Administration itself was never able to prove otherwise, simply because it was not true,” she said in a statement released following the verdict.

Eight Years of Fighting a Claim Spain Could Not Prove

The case centered on whether Shakira was a tax resident in Spain during 2011, the year she embarked on a world tour spanning 120 concerts across 37 countries. The Spanish Tax Agency argued that she was already living in Spain at the time and therefore owed taxes on all income generated from that tour globally. Shakira maintained that she had spent the year largely on the road and had not been present in Spain long enough to qualify as a fiscal resident under Spanish law.

Spanish tax residency requires a person to spend a minimum of 183 days per year in the country. The Audiencia Nacional concluded that the Tax Agency failed to prove Shakira had been present in Spain for more than 163 days during the period in question, falling short of the legal threshold by a margin that the court found decisive.

The Tax Agency had built its case on the fact that Shakira was in a relationship with former Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué, the father of her two children, and argued that she was developing her personal life and part of her economic activity in Spain during that period. Authorities collected information on her expenses, her public appearances and even her social media posts in an attempt to establish that Spain was her primary place of residence. The court determined that the evidence gathered was insufficient to support that conclusion.

The ruling overturns a 2021 decision by the Central Economic Administrative Court, which had found that Shakira owed both income tax and wealth tax for the period in question, a sum that, combined with penalties, had amounted to over 55 million euros. The Tax Agency will now be required to return that amount along with accumulated interest and the costs of the legal proceedings.

A Separate Conviction That This Ruling Does Not Change

This victory is the first time a Spanish court has ruled in Shakira’s favor in her long-running disputes with the country’s tax authorities, but it does not erase the legal history that preceded it. In 2023, Shakira was convicted of tax fraud in a separate case covering the years 2012 through 2014, in which she agreed to a plea deal that included a three-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 7.3 million euros. In that case, prosecutors successfully argued that she had fraudulently claimed residency in the Bahamas, where she owned a private island, while actually living in Barcelona with Piqué and their children. The fine covered 14.5 million euros in unpaid taxes on income from tours, advertising campaigns and music rights.

The current ruling has no bearing on that conviction, which stands. The two cases are legally separate, covering different tax years and different sets of allegations, and the Audiencia Nacional’s decision this week addresses only the 2011 dispute.

A Personal Cost She Made Public

Shakira has been open about the toll the tax dispute took on her life and her health. The controversy even found its way into one of her biggest recent hits, in which she sings about her breakup with Piqué and references being left with his mother as a neighbor, the press at her door and a debt with the tax authorities.

“After more than eight years enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation and entire nights without sleep that ended up affecting my health and the wellbeing of my family, the Audiencia Nacional has finally set the record straight,” she said in her statement following Monday’s ruling.

Shakira left Spain in 2023 and relocated to Miami, where she currently lives with her children. The Tax Agency has 30 days to file a cassation appeal against the ruling, meaning the case may not yet be entirely closed, but for the first time in nearly a decade, the verdict is in her favor.