A Spanish court has ordered the country’s tax authority to refund €55m (£48m, $64m) to singer Shakira after ruling that the money was improperly collected in a dispute over her taxes.
The national high court has acquitted the Colombian singer of tax fraud and ordered the Treasury to repay the money plus interest to her.
It said tax authorities had failed to prove she spent 183 days in Spain in 2011 – the minimum required for residents to pay personal income tax there.
Shakira said the court had “finally set the record straight” after she had spent eight years “enduring brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being”.
“Yet, for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty. Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.
“Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”
She dedicated her victory to the “thousands of ordinary citizens” made to similarly prove their innocence at “the cost of economic and emotional ruin”.
The repayment includes about €24m (£21m) in income tax and almost €25m (£22m) in fines for what authorities had described as a “very serious” infringement.
The tax agency said it would appeal to the Supreme Court and that no payment would be made until the final ruling.
Shakira lived with former Barcelona and Spain footballer Gerard Pique for more than a decade after reportedly meeting in 2010 while filming the music video for Waka Waka, the official song of the World Cup in South Africa.
The High Court said that the fines were unlawful because they relied on the assumption that Spain was her tax residence for the 2011 fiscal year, “a fact which has not been proven”.
The court said she spent 163 days in Spain in that financial year – 20 days short of the threshold for her to be classed as a resident for tax purposes.
The case does not involve the tax years after 2011.
The dispute was one of several involving Shakira and Spain’s tax agency, including a separate settlement reached in 2018 to avoid a trial in a broader fraud case.
Writing in Spanish daily publication El Mundo in 2024, Shakira, 49, compared the tax office investigations into her affairs to an “inquisition trial”.
The latest ruling comes as Shakira is set to wrap up her Women Don’t Cry Anymore world tour with a residency in Madrid from September.
She will also perform alongside Madonna and BTS during the half-time show at this summer’s Fifa Men’s World Cup final, it was announced last week.
Earlier this month, two million people attended a free Shakira concert on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.
