Touchstone Variable Series Trust

04/29/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/29/2026 08:23

Summary Prospectus by Investment Company (Form 497K)

      
Summary Prospectus 
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
Before you invest, you may want to review the Fund's prospectus, which contains information about the Fund and its risks. The Fund's prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, both dated April 30, 2026, as amended from time to time, are incorporated by reference into this summary prospectus. For free paper or electronic copies of the Fund's prospectus and other information about the Fund, go to TouchstoneInvestments.com/Resources, call (800) 543-0407, or ask the insurance company that offers your variable annuity or variable life insurance contract or your financial intermediary.
Touchstone Small Company Fund Summary
The Fund's Investment Goal
The Touchstone Small Company Fund (the "Fund") seeks to provide investors with growth of capital.
The Fund's Fees and Expenses
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund, but does not reflect the effect of any fees or other expenses of any variable annuity or variable life insurance product. If variable annuity or variable life contract fees were included, expenses would be higher: 
Class I
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fees
0.50%
Other Expenses
Shareholder Service Fees
0.00%
Other Operating Expenses
0.36%
Total Other Expenses
0.36%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses
0.86%
Fee Waiver and/or Expense Reimbursement(1)
(0.10)%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Fee Waiver and/or Expense Reimbursement(1)
0.76%
(1)
Touchstone Advisors, Inc. (the "Adviser" or "Touchstone Advisors") and Touchstone Variable Series Trust (the "Trust") have entered into a contractual expense limitation agreement whereby Touchstone Advisors will waive a portion of its fees or reimburse certain Fund expenses (excluding dividend and interest expenses relating to short sales; interest; taxes; brokerage commissions and other transaction costs; portfolio transaction and investment related expenses, including expenses associated with the Fund's liquidity providers; other expenditures which are capitalized in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles; the cost of "Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses", if any; and other extraordinary expenses not incurred in the ordinary course of business) in order to limit annual Fund operating expenses to 0.76% of average daily net assets for Class I shares. This contractual expense limitation is effective through April 29, 2027, but can be terminated by a vote of the Board of Trustees of the Trust (the "Board") if it deems the termination to be beneficial to the Fund's shareholders. The terms of the contractual expense limitation agreement provide that Touchstone Advisors is entitled to recoup, subject to approval by the Board, such amounts waived or reimbursed for a period of up to three years from the date on which the Adviser reduced its compensation or assumed expenses for the Fund. The Fund will make repayments to the Adviser only if such repayment does not cause the annual Fund operating expenses (after the repayment is taken into account) to exceed both (1) the expense cap in place when such amounts were waived or reimbursed and (2) the Fund's current expense limitation.
Example. This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example does not include expenses incurred from investing through a variable annuity or a variable life insurance product. If the example included these expenses, the figures shown would be higher. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and
1
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year, that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same and that all fee waivers or expense limits for the Fund will expire after one year. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:  
Class I
1 Year
$78
3 Years
$264
5 Years
$467
10 Years
$1,052
Portfolio Turnover. The Fund pays transaction costs, such as brokerage commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in total annual Fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 49% of the average value of the Fund's portfolio.
The Fund's Principal Investment Strategies
The Fund normally invests at least 80% of its assets in small-capitalization companies. This is a non-fundamental investment policy that can be changed by the Fund upon 60 days' prior written notice to shareholders. For this purpose, small capitalization companies are companies that have market capitalizations within the range represented in the Russell 2000® Index (between approximately $4 million and $38.2 billion as of March 31, 2026). The market cap range of the Russell 2000® Index will change with market conditions. For these purposes, an issuer's market cap is determined at the time of purchase.
The Fund seeks to invest primarily in common stocks of small companies that Fort Washington Investment Advisors, Inc., the Fund's sub-adviser, believes are high quality, have superior business models, solid management teams, sustainable growth potential and are attractively valued. The Fund may invest without limitation in foreign securities, although only where the securities are trading in the U.S. or Canada and only where trading is denominated in U.S. or Canadian dollars.
Up to 25% of the Fund's assets may be invested in securities within a single industry. Although the Fund may invest in any economic sector, at times it may emphasize one or more particular sectors. At times the Fund may have less than 80% of its investments in companies within the market cap range of the Russell 2000® Index due to market appreciation.
The Fund typically sells a security if the portfolio manager believes it is overvalued, if the original investment premise is no longer true, if the holding size exceeds the portfolio manager's company or sector weighting guidelines and/or to take advantage of a more attractive investment opportunity. The Fund may also sell a partial position in a security in order to manage the size of the position. A security may also be sold to meet redemptions.
The Fund's Principal Risks
The Fund's share price will fluctuate. You could lose money on your investment in the Fund and the Fund could also return less than other investments. Investments in the Fund are not bank guaranteed, are not deposits, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other federal government agency. As with any mutual fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its investment goal. You can find more information about the Fund's investments and risks under the "Principal Investment Strategies and Risks" section of the Fund's prospectus. The Fund is subject to the principal risks summarized below.
2
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
Equity Securities Risk: The Fund is subject to the risk that stock prices will fall over short or extended periods of time. Individual companies may report poor results or be negatively affected by industry and/or economic trends and developments, or as a result of irregular and/or unexpected trading activity among retail investors. The prices of securities issued by these companies may decline in response to such developments, which could result in a decline in the value of the Fund's shares.
●
Small-Cap Risk: Stocks of smaller companies may be subject to more abrupt or erratic market movements than stocks of larger, more established companies. Small companies may have limited product lines or financial resources and may be dependent upon a small or inexperienced management group.
Economic and Market Events Risk: Events in the U.S. and global financial markets, including actions taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve or foreign central banks to stimulate or stabilize economic growth, may at times, and for varying periods of time, result in unusually high market volatility, which could negatively impact the Fund's performance and cause the Fund to experience illiquidity, shareholder redemptions, or other potentially adverse effects. Reduced liquidity in credit and fixed-income markets could negatively affect issuers worldwide. Financial institutions could suffer losses as interest rates rise or economic conditions deteriorate. In addition, the Fund's service providers are susceptible to operational and information or cybersecurity risks that could result in losses to a Fund and its shareholders.
Management Risk: In managing the Fund's portfolio, the Adviser engages one or more sub-advisers to make investment decisions for a portion of or the entire portfolio. There is a risk that the Adviser may be unable to identify and retain sub-advisers who achieve superior investment returns relative to other similar sub-advisers.
Foreign Securities Risk: Investing in foreign securities poses additional risks since political and economic events unique in a country or region will affect those markets and their issuers, while such events may not necessarily affect the U.S. economy or issuers located in the United States. In addition, investments in foreign securities are generally denominated in foreign currency. As a result, changes in the value of those currencies compared to the U.S. dollar may affect (positively or negatively) the value of the Fund's investments. There are also risks associated with foreign accounting standards, government regulation, market information, and clearance and settlement procedures. To the extent that the securities held by the Fund trade on foreign exchanges or in foreign markets that may be closed when the U.S. market is open, there are likely to be deviations between the current price of the securities held by the Fund and their last quoted price or the securities' quote from the closed foreign market. Foreign markets may be less liquid and more volatile than U.S. markets and offer less protection to investors. To the extent a Fund focuses its investments in a single country or only a few countries in a particular geographic region, economic, political, regulatory or other conditions affecting such country or region may have a greater impact on Fund performance relative to a more geographically diversified fund.
Sector and Industry Focus Risk: The Fund may invest a high percentage of its assets in specific sectors and/or industries of the market in order to achieve a potentially greater investment return. As a result, the Fund may be more susceptible to economic, political, and regulatory developments in a particular sector or industry of the market, positive or negative, than a fund that does not invest a high percentage of its assets in specific sectors or industries.
Cybersecurity Risk: Cybersecurity breaches are either intentional or unintentional events that allow an unauthorized party to gain access to Fund assets, customer data, or proprietary information, or cause a Fund or Fund service provider to suffer data corruption or lose operational functionality. A cybersecurity breach could result in the loss or theft of customer data or funds, loss or theft of proprietary information or corporate data, physical damage to a computer or network system, or costs associated with system repairs, any of which could have a substantial impact on the Fund. Such incidents could affect issuers in which a Fund invests, thereby causing the Fund's investments to lose value. The Fund has established risk management systems reasonably designed to seek to reduce the risks associated with cyber-events. However, there is no guarantee that the Fund will be able to prevent or mitigate the impact of any or all cyber-events.
3
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
The Fund's Performance
On October 27, 2017, the Sentinel Variable Products Small Company Fund, previously a series of Sentinel Variable Products Trust (the "Predecessor Fund"), was reorganized into the Fund. As a result of the reorganization, the performance history of the Predecessor Fund was assumed by the Fund. Performance information prior to October 27, 2017 is that of the Predecessor Fund.
The bar chart and the performance table below illustrate some indication of the risks and volatility of an investment in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund's Class I share performance from calendar year to calendar year and by showing how the Fund's Class I share average annual total returns for one year, five years, and ten years compare with the Bloomberg US 3000 Index and the Russell 3000® Index. The Bloomberg US 2000 Index and the Russell 2000® Index show how the Fund's performance compares against the returns of indexes with similar investment objectives.
The performance information shown does not reflect fees that are paid by the separate accounts through which shares of the Fund are sold. Inclusion of those fees would reduce the total return figures for all periods. Past performance does not necessarily indicate how the Fund will perform in the future.
The Fund returns shown in the table below are before taxes. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements. Please see the "Distribution and Taxes" section of the Fund's prospectus for more information.
Touchstone Small Company Fund - Class I Shares Total Return as of December 31
  
Best Quarter:
4th Quarter 2020
35.53
%
Worst Quarter:
1st Quarter 2020
(30.10
)%
Year-To-Date:
3/31/2026
(2.26
)%
 
4
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
Average Annual Total Returns
For the periods ended December 31, 2025
1 Year
5 Years
10 Years
Touchstone Small Company Fund - Class I
9.72
%
9.10
%
11.37
%
Bloomberg US 3000 Index(1) (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or
taxes)
17.21
%
13.09
%
14.27
%
Bloomberg US 2000 Index(2) (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or
taxes)
11.06
%
6.65
%
10.00
%
Russell 3000® Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
17.15
%
13.15
%
14.29
%
Russell 2000® Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
12.81
%
6.09
%
9.62
%
(1)
The Fund changed its broad-based securities market index to the Bloomberg US 3000 Index which is similarly representative of the overall securities market applicable to the Fund.
(2)
The Fund changed its additional index to the Bloomberg US 2000 Index which has similar investment objectives to the Fund.
The Fund's Management
Investment Adviser
Touchstone Advisors, Inc. serves as the Fund's investment adviser.  
Sub-Adviser
Portfolio Manager
Investment Experience
with the Fund
Primary Title with
Sub-Adviser
Fort Washington
Investment Advisors,
Inc.
Jason Ronovech, CFA
Since inception in
October 2017; managed
the Predecessor Fund
from 2013 to 2017
Vice President and
Senior Portfolio
Manager
Buying and Selling Fund Shares
You cannot buy or sell shares of the Fund directly. You can invest indirectly in the Fund through your purchase of a variable annuity contract or variable life policy. Please see the variable contract prospectus for additional investment information.
Tax Information
The dividends and distributions paid by the Fund will consist of ordinary income, capital gains or some combination of both. Because shares of the Fund must be purchased through separate accounts used to fund variable life and variable annuity insurance contracts, such dividends and distributions will be exempt from current taxation to you if you leave such amounts to accumulate within a separate account. Please see the variable contract prospectus for additional tax information.
Payments to Sponsoring Insurance Companies and Other Financial Intermediaries
The Fund or its distributor (and related companies) may pay broker/dealers or other financial intermediaries (such as insurance companies or their related companies) for the sale and retention of variable contracts that offer Fund shares and/or for other services. These payments may create a conflict of interest for a financial intermediary, or may be a factor in the insurance company's decision to include the Fund as an investment option in its variable contract. For more information, ask your financial adviser, visit your financial intermediary's website, or consult the variable contract prospectus or the Fund's prospectus.
TSF-TU78000-SUMPRO-2604
5
Touchstone Small Company FundApril 30, 2026
 
6
 
(This Page Intentionally Left Blank)
7
(This Page Intentionally Left Blank)
8
Touchstone Variable Series Trust published this content on April 29, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via EDGAR on April 29, 2026 at 14:23 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]