An easily movable compact heating stage for heating substrates in an oxidizing atmosphere up to a temperature of about 700 degrees C is described. A resistive heating element of Kanthal (72.5Fe-22Cr-5.5Al wt%) wire is used. The heating element is mounted inside a stainless steel vessel to isolate it from active oxygen gas environments. The vessel is assembled in air of one atmospheric pressure at room temperature. Substrates are contacted for heating on the top plane of the vessel with a stainless steel substrate holder. In order to show the performance of the heating stage, the resistive transition property of a single crystal YBa2Cu3O7-x thin film formed by rf magnetron sputtering on a MgO (100) substrate heated by this stage is demonstrated.