The word visa originates from Modern Latin “charta visa,” which means verified paper or translated into “paper that has to be seen.” Previously, visas were separate documents that went hand in hand with the passport during international travel, but nowadays, most visas are stamps or stickers attached to your passport.
Here is a brief history of how travel documents began:
| Period | Event | Description |
| 420 BC. | First travel documents | The first mention of traveling documents (passport and a visa) in the Hebrew Bible when Nehemiah, who was under the service of the Persian King Artaxerxes I, asked for a travel passage to Judea (a region in Jerusalem). |
| 1386-1442 | The first passport | The reign of King Henry the V— who is credited with creating the first passport. |
| 1643-1715 | The “Passe port” | The reign of King Louis XIV of France (the Sun King), who liked to issue personally signed travel documents he called “passe port”— although there is still much debate where the name “passport” originates from. |
| 1918 – | Obligatory passport | At the end of the First World War, passports became obligatory documents for international travels and were often accompanied by visas. |
| 1922 – 1938 | Nansen passport | The League of Nations in Paris established the Nansen passport to combat the loss of nationality that many refugees experienced after WWI. |
| 1945 – | Visas | At the end of the Second World War, there was a heavy surge of migration worldwide, requiring stricter border patrol. Both travel documents, visas, and passports were mandatory in most cases for international travel. |
Nowadays, as an identification document, you must have a valid passport issued by your home country when you travel internationally. Visas, issued by your destination country, are considered an essential tool in migration control.