MADRID — A Spanish court has acquitted pop star Shakira in a tax dispute tied to the 2011 tax year and ordered the government to return more than 55 million euros, a court document seen by The Associated Press said. Shakira’s lawyer later said the Treasury must reimburse about 60 million euros including interest.
The Madrid-based court found Spanish authorities failed to prove the singer was a tax resident in Spain in 2011. Under Spanish law, someone is generally considered a tax resident if they spend more than 183 days in the country. The court said authorities had only documented 163 days in Spain for Shakira that year and therefore could not establish residency.
Spain’s tax agency had argued Shakira was tied to the country through her relationship with then-soccer player Gerard Piqué and that her principal economic activities were based in Spain. The High Court rejected those claims, saying the couple’s relationship could not be legally equated to a marriage and that prosecutors had not shown Shakira’s main center of economic interests was located in Spain in 2011.
In a statement provided by her lawyers, Shakira said, “There was never any fraud, and the Tax Agency itself was never able to prove otherwise, simply because it wasn’t true.” Her attorney José Luís Prada called the ruling the end of an “eight-year ordeal” and criticized administrative practices used in the case.
This decision follows earlier tax trouble: in 2023 Shakira reached a separate agreement with Spanish prosecutors over alleged unpaid income taxes for 2012–2014. In that case she accepted charges and paid about 7.3 million euros in addition to unpaid taxes and interest.
Shakira was also named in the 2017 Paradise Papers, which exposed offshore arrangements used by a range of public figures. Over the past decade, Spain has stepped up enforcement of high-profile tax cases, including actions against soccer stars such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who were found guilty of tax offenses but avoided prison under provisions for first-time offenders with short sentences.