Summary Prospectus by Investment Company - Form 497K

CORE PLUS BOND ACCOUNT

Class 1 Shares

Principal Variable Contracts Funds, Inc. Summary Prospectus May 1, 2024

Before you invest, you may want to review the Fund's Prospectus, which contains more information about the Fund and its risks. You can find the Fund's Prospectus, Statement of Additional Information, Reports to Shareholders, and other information about the Fund online at www.PrincipalAM.com/PVCProspectuses. You can also get this information at no cost by calling 1-800-222-5852 or by sending an email request to [email protected].

The Fund's Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, both dated May 1, 2024, as may be amended or supplemented, are incorporated by reference into this Summary Prospectus.

Objective

The Fund seeks to provide current income and, as a secondary objective, capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and examples below. These fees and expenses do not reflect the fees and expenses of any variable insurance contract that may invest in the Fund and would be higher if they did.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

Share Class
Class 1
Management Fees	0.48%
Other Expenses	0.02%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses	0.50%

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 assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and 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 and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. If separate account expenses and contract-level expenses were included, expenses would be higher. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

1 year	3 years	5 years	10 years
Core Plus Bond Account - Class 1	$51	$160	$280	$628

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as 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 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 143.3% of the average value of its portfolio.

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Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in bonds or other debt securities at the time of purchase. Such investments include securities issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government or its agencies or instrumentalities; asset-backed securities and mortgage-backed securities (securitized products, including collateralized mortgage obligations); corporate bonds; and foreign securities, including emerging market securities. The Fund invests in investment-grade securities and, with respect to up to 25% of its assets, in below-investment-grade securities (sometimes called "high yield" or "junk"), which are rated at the time of purchase Ba1 or lower by Moody's Investors Service, Inc. ("Moody's") and BB+ or lower by S&P Global Ratings ("S&P Global"). If the security has been rated by only one of the rating agencies, that rating will determine the security's rating; if the security is rated differently by the rating agencies, the highest rating will be used; and if the security has not been rated by either of the rating agencies, those selecting such investments will determine the security's quality. The Fund is not managed to a particular maturity. Under normal circumstances, the Fund maintains an average portfolio duration that is within ±25% of the duration of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, which as of March 31, 2024 was 6.11 years. The Fund's strategies may result in the active and frequent trading of the Fund's portfolio securities.

The Fund enters into dollar roll transactions, which may involve leverage. The Fund invests in derivatives, including Treasury futures and interest rate swaps to manage the fixed-income exposure (including for hedging purposes) and credit default swaps to increase or decrease, in an efficient manner, exposures to certain sectors or individual issuers. A derivative is a financial arrangement, the value of which is derived from, or based on, a traditional security, asset, or market index.

Principal Risks

The value of your investment in the Fund changes with the value of the Fund's investments. Many factors affect that value, and it is possible to lose money by investing in the Fund. An investment in the Fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. The principal risks of investing in the Fund are listed below in alphabetical order and not in order of significance.

Counterparty Risk. Counterparty risk is the risk that the counterparty to a contract or other obligation will be unable or unwilling to honor its obligations.

Derivatives Risk. Derivatives may not move in the direction anticipated by the portfolio manager. Transactions in derivatives may increase volatility, cause the liquidation of portfolio positions when not advantageous to do so, and result in disproportionate losses that may be substantially greater than a fund's initial investment.

•Credit Default Swaps. Credit default swaps involve special risks in addition to those associated with swaps generally because they are difficult to value, are highly susceptible to liquidity and credit risk, and generally pay a return to the party that has paid the premium only in the event of an actual default by the issuer of the underlying obligation (as opposed to a credit downgrade or other indication of financial difficulty). The protection "buyer" in a credit default contract may be obligated to pay the protection "seller" an up-front payment or a periodic stream of payments over the term of the contract, provided, generally, that no credit event on a reference obligation has occurred. If a credit event occurs, the seller generally must pay the buyer the "par value" (i.e., full notional value) of the swap in exchange for an equal face amount of deliverable obligations of the reference entity described in the swap, or the seller may be required to deliver the related net cash amount, if the swap is cash settled. The Fund may be either the buyer or seller in the transaction.

•Futures and Swaps. These derivative instruments involve specific risks, including: the imperfect correlation between the change in market value of the instruments held by the fund and the price of the instruments; possible lack of a liquid secondary market for an instrument and the resulting inability to close it when desired; counterparty risk; and if the fund has insufficient cash, it may have to sell securities from its portfolio to meet any applicable daily variation margin requirements.

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Emerging Markets Risk. Investments in emerging markets may have more risk than those in developed markets because the emerging markets are less developed and more illiquid. Emerging markets can also be subject to increased social, economic, regulatory, and political uncertainties and can be extremely volatile. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and other U.S. authorities may be limited in their ability to pursue bad actors in emerging markets, including with respect to fraud.

Fixed-Income Securities Risk. Fixed-income securities are subject to interest rate, credit quality, and liquidity risks. The market value of fixed-income securities generally declines when interest rates rise, and increased interest rates may adversely affect the liquidity of certain fixed-income securities. Moreover, an issuer of fixed-income securities could default on its payment obligations due to increased interest rates or for other reasons.

Foreign Currency Risk. Risks of investing in securities denominated in, or that trade in, foreign (non-U.S.) currencies include changes in foreign exchange rates and foreign exchange restrictions.

Foreign Securities Risk. The risks of foreign securities include loss of value as a result of: political or economic instability; nationalization, expropriation, or confiscatory taxation; settlement delays; and limited government regulation (including less stringent reporting, accounting, and disclosure standards than are required of U.S. companies).

Hedging Risk. A fund that implements a hedging strategy using derivatives and/or securities could expose the fund to the risk that can arise when a change in the value of a hedge does not match a change in the value of the asset it hedges. In other words, the change in value of the hedge could move in a direction that does not match the change in value of the underlying asset, resulting in a risk of loss to the fund.

High Portfolio Turnover Risk. High portfolio turnover (more than 100%) caused by active and frequent trading of portfolio securities may result in accelerating the realization of taxable gains and losses, lower fund performance, and increased brokerage costs.

High Yield Securities Risk. High yield fixed-income securities (commonly referred to as "junk bonds") are subject to greater credit quality risk than higher rated fixed-income securities and should be considered speculative.

Leverage Risk. Leverage created by borrowing or certain types of transactions or investments may impair the fund's liquidity, cause it to liquidate positions at an unfavorable time, increase volatility of the fund's net asset value, or diminish the fund's performance.

Portfolio Duration Risk. Portfolio duration is a measure of the expected life of a fixed-income security and its sensitivity to changes in interest rates. The longer a fund's average portfolio duration, the more sensitive the fund will be to changes in interest rates, which means funds with longer average portfolio durations may be more volatile than those with shorter durations.

Real Estate Securities Risk. Investing in real estate securities subjects the fund to the risks associated with the real estate market (which are similar to the risks associated with direct ownership in real estate), including declines in real estate values, loss due to casualty or condemnation, property taxes, interest rate changes, increased expenses, cash flow of underlying real estate assets, regulatory changes (including zoning, land use, and rents), and environmental problems, as well as to the risks related to the management skill and creditworthiness of the issuer.

Redemption and Large Transaction Risk. Ownership of the Fund's shares may be concentrated in one or a few large investors (such as funds of funds, institutional investors, and asset allocation programs) that may redeem or purchase shares in large quantities. These transactions may cause the Fund to sell securities to meet redemptions or to invest additional cash at times it would not otherwise do so, which may result in increased transaction costs, increased expenses, changes to expense ratios, and adverse effects to Fund performance. Such transactions may also accelerate the realization of taxable income if sales of portfolio securities result in gains. Moreover, reallocations by large shareholders among share classes of a fund may result in changes to the expense ratios of affected classes, which may increase the expenses paid by shareholders of the class that experienced the redemption.

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Securitized Products Risk. Investments in securitized products are subject to risks similar to traditional fixed-income securities, such as credit, interest rate, liquidity, prepayment, extension, and default risk, as well as additional risks associated with the nature of the assets and the servicing of those assets. Unscheduled prepayments on securitized products may have to be reinvested at lower rates. A reduction in prepayments may increase the effective maturities of these securities, exposing them to the risk of decline in market value over time (extension risk).

U.S. Government Securities Risk. Yields available from U.S. government securities are generally lower than yields from many other fixed-income securities. The value of U.S. government securities may be adversely impacted by changes in interest rates, changes in the credit rating of the U.S. government, or a default by the U.S. government.

U.S. Government-Sponsored Securities Risk. Securities issued by U.S. government-sponsored enterprises such as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and the Federal Home Loan Banks are not issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government.

Performance

The following information provides some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. Past performance is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You may get updated performance information by calling 1-800-222-5852.

The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1, 5, and 10 years (or, if shorter, the life of the Fund) compare with those of one or more broad measures of market performance. Performance figures for the Fund do not include any separate account expenses, cost of insurance, or other contract-level expenses; total returns for the Fund would be lower if such expenses were included.

Total Returns as of December 31

Highest return for a quarter during the period of the bar chart above:	Q4 2023	7.36%
Lowest return for a quarter during the period of the bar chart above:	Q1 2022	(6.01)%

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Average Annual Total Returns

For the periods ended December 31, 2023

1 Year	5 Years	10 Years
Core Plus Bond Account - Class 1	5.34%	1.61%	2.01%
Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses, or taxes)	5.53%	1.10%	1.81%

Investment Advisor and Portfolio Managers

Principal Global Investors, LLC

•William C. Armstrong (since 2000), Portfolio Manager

•Bryan C. Davis (since 2022), Portfolio Manager

•Michael Goosay (since 2023), Portfolio Manager

Tax Information

The Fund intends to comply with applicable variable asset diversification regulations. Taxation to you will depend on what you do with your variable life insurance or variable annuity contract. See your variable product prospectus for information about the tax implications of investing in the Fund.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as an insurance company), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for the sale of Fund shares and related services. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment, to recommend one Fund or share class of the Fund over another Fund or share class, or to recommend one variable annuity, variable life insurance policy, or mutual fund over another. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary's website for more information.

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