Income Taxes - Additional Information (Detail) - USD ($)		9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2018	Sep. 30, 2018	Sep. 30, 2017
Income Tax Contingency [Line Items]
Estimates annual effective tax rate		5.00%
Deferred tax benefit		$ 2,572,000	$ 2,320,000
Effective tax rate		4.40%	3.30%
Unrecognized tax benefits that would affect effective tax rate	$ 0	$ 0
Accounting for the 2017 tax cuts and jobs act was complete	false
Foreign Tax Authority [Member] \| TransEnterix Italia [Member]
Income Tax Contingency [Line Items]
Net deferred tax asset	$ 0	0
Valuation allowance	$ 0	$ 0

Estimated annual effective income tax rate continuing operations.

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Indicates (true false) whether accounting for income tax effect of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is complete.

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Amount of deferred income tax expense (benefit) pertaining to income (loss) from continuing operations.

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Amount, after allocation of valuation allowances and deferred tax liability, of deferred tax asset attributable to deductible differences and carryforwards, without jurisdictional netting.

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Amount of deferred tax assets for which it is more likely than not that a tax benefit will not be realized.

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Percentage of current income tax expense (benefit) and deferred income tax expense (benefit) pertaining to continuing operations.

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Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

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The total amount of unrecognized tax benefits that, if recognized, would affect the effective tax rate.

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