In order to accommodate visitor traffic to the 1900 World's Fair across the Seine, the General Commissioner of the Exposition, Alfred Picard, approved the construction of a provisional footbridge opposite the Avenue Albert de Mun, to join the Army and Navy Halls to the exhibit recreating old Paris.

The bridge became a permanent fixture from its original provisional status under the management of the City of Paris in 1906 after it was relocated opposite to the rue de la Manutention.

The footbridge is built on a metallic framework resting on two stone piers at the riverbanks, and decorated with dark green ceramic tiles arranged in a fashion that suggests the impression of waves.

As a contemporary of the Pont Alexandre III and the Austerlitz Viaduct, the Passerelle Debilly was eventually included in the supplementary registry of historical monuments in 1966.

In 1989, a German diplomat working for the Secret Service of the Democratic Republic of Germany was found dead on this footbridge, several days after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.