Commitments and Contingencies - Commitments (Details) $ in Millions	12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2022 USD ($) item	Dec. 31, 2021 USD ($)	Dec. 31, 2020 USD ($)
Commitments and Contingencies
Rental expense relating to operating leases \| $	$ 15.0	$ 9.3	$ 12.4
Minimum
Commitments and Contingencies
Lease term	30 days	30 days	30 days
Joint Venture
Commitments and Contingencies
Number of drilling units to backstop entity share to purchase in the event of insufficient cash \| item	25

Represents the number of drilling units to backstop entity share to purchase in the event of insufficient funds.

No definition available.

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Namespace Prefix:	nbr_
Data Type:	xbrli:integerItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration

- Definition

Term of lessee's operating lease, in 'PnYnMnDTnHnMnS' format, for example, 'P1Y5M13D' represents reported fact of one year, five months, and thirteen days.

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2009/role/commonPracticeRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 842
-SubTopic 20
-Section 50
-Paragraph 3
-Subparagraph (a)(3)
-URI https://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=128292326&loc=SL77918673-209980

+ Details

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Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	instant

- Definition

Amount of operating lease expense. Excludes sublease income.

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2009/role/commonPracticeRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 842
-SubTopic 20
-Section 45
-Paragraph 4
-Subparagraph (b)
-URI https://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=123391704&loc=SL77918638-209977

+ Details

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Balance Type:	debit
Period Type:	duration

- Definition

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.

+ References

No definition available.

+ Details

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- Details

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- Details

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