Shakira takes Spain stage as court reviews $63M tax claim

Shakira is returning to the stage in Spain for the first time in eight years, just as the country’s Supreme Court weighs an appeal in her long-running battle with tax authorities.

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The Colombian pop star, 49, is set to perform a 12-show residency in Madrid beginning Friday at a temporary stadium built for the occasion, with more than 600,000 people expected to attend. The concerts mark a homecoming of sorts after years of tax disputes centered on whether she made Spain her home in the early 2010s. 

Earlier this year, Shakira won a ruling wiping out almost €55 million ($63 million) in tax assessments and penalties for 2011. That case is separate from charges covering 2012 through 2014 that she settled in 2023 by pleading guilty to six counts of tax fraud and receiving a suspended prison sentence. The Supreme Court is now reviewing an appeal by authorities seeking to overturn her more recent victory.

Shakira sharply criticized Spanish tax authorities after her 2023 settlement and moved to Miami that year. Her tone toward Spain is markedly warmer now.

“I picked Madrid for this celebration,” she wrote in the newspaper El Pais last month. “Something happens here that the world ought to see: Latino immigration is not just tolerated, it is celebrated. Spain has embraced it.”

In 2024, less than a year after her guilty plea, she described the country differently. 

“For me, the Spanish decade was a lost decade financially,” Shakira said in newspaper El Mundo. “Today, my net worth consists of what I made before moving to Spain and what I earned after leaving it. All I made in those years was kept by the Spanish state.” 

A representative for Shakira declined to comment.

Legal wrangling

As her battles with Spanish tax authorities have stretched on for more than eight years, the legal wrangling has prompted questions from some critics about whether Spain’s tax authority may be overreaching in some cases. 

After her win earlier this year, Shakira issued a scathing statement dedicating her victory to “ordinary citizens who are abused and crushed every day” by a system that presumes their guilt. 

“There was never any fraud, and the tax authorities could never prove otherwise,” she said.  

Shakira has said her residency will be Europe’s biggest-ever. The Madrid production is also a test of how far the economics of a major concert can extend beyond a few hours inside a stadium.

Live Nation Entertainment Inc. has built a 55,000-seat temporary stadium south of Madrid to showcase the performances. Estimates put the economic impact to the city at roughly €150 million, or about €250 for every expected attendee.

Next to the stadium is Macondo Park, a fair named for the magic-infused town in Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. It features dozens of businesses and activities designed to keep fans at the site for hours before Shakira takes the stage

Shakira’s residency will wrap up a world tour of her album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. 

“I want people to know that my love for Spain and my dear Spanish friends and family still endures,” Shakira wrote in 2024. “But not everything is the same.”