Variable Interest Entities - Nonconsolidated Variable Interest Entities (Parenthetical) (Detail) - USD ($) $ in Millions	Sep. 30, 2016	Dec. 31, 2015
Variable Interest Entity [Line Items]
Assets in VIE	$ 76,010	$ 90,145
Maximum Exposure to Loss in Nonconsolidated VIEs	14,905	15,751
Commitments and guarantees and derivative transactions with VIEs to which the firm transferred assets	1,500	1,520
CDOs Backed by Mortgage Obligations [Member]
Variable Interest Entity [Line Items]
Assets in VIE	3,380	4,080
Maximum Exposure to Loss in Nonconsolidated VIEs	$ 339	$ 502

Derivative transactions and commitments with VIEs to which the firm transferred assets.

No definition available.

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Period Type:	instant

- Definition

Size of the variable interest entity measured by total assets.

+ References

No definition available.

+ Details

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Namespace Prefix:	gs_
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Balance Type:	debit
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- Definition

The reporting entity's maximum amount of exposure to loss as a result of its involvement with the Variable Interest Entity (VIE).

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 810
-SubTopic 10
-Section 50
-Paragraph 4
-Subparagraph b
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=64801991&loc=d3e5728-111685

Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 810
-SubTopic 10
-Section 50
-Paragraph 6
-Subparagraph (c)
-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=64801991&loc=d3e5747-111685

+ Details

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- 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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