We consider the problem of variable selection for the single-index random effects models with longitudinal data. An automatic variable selection procedure is developed using smooth-threshold. The proposed method shares some of the desired features of existing variable selection methods: the resulting estimator enjoys the oracle property; the proposed procedure avoids the convex optimization problem and is flexible and easy to implement. Moreover, we use the penalized weighted deviance criterion for a data-driven choice of the tuning parameters. Simulation studies are carried out to assess the performance of our method, and a real dataset is analyzed for further illustration.