Nine, and the arithmetic is quick: one queen at the start, eight pawns, and each pawn may promote to a queen. Nobody has ever needed nine. Two is the number you will actually meet, and it tends to look like this: a queen already sitting on c7, a pawn one step from b8, and 1.b8=Q ending the argument.
8
7
g Where the myth comes from
Plenty of club players believe you can only promote to a piece that has already been captured, so a pawn cannot become a queen while your first queen is alive. It is not true and it never was. The Laws state that the choice is not restricted to pieces previously captured, which is about as blunt as they get. Promote to whatever you like: queen, rook, bishop or knight, of your own colour, on the square the pawn arrives at.
The confusion is physical rather than legal. The box has one queen per side in it, so when a second one is needed there is nothing to put down, and people assume the rules must forbid what the equipment cannot do.
What to put on the square
Over the board, stop the clock, catch the arbiter’s eye and ask for a queen. There are usually spare sets in the room. If you are playing casually, borrow the queen from a set on the next table.
What you should not do is invert a rook. An upside-down rook is a rook as far as an arbiter is concerned, and in a time scramble your opponent may not read it as anything else. There is a whole page on promoting without a spare queen, because it comes up more often than you would think in junior events.
Online none of this exists. The board hands you a queen and asks no questions.
Two queens, and the trap that comes with them
The second queen usually ends the game inside three moves. It also doubles your chances of stalemate, which is the one way to throw the win away: two queens take away so many squares that a lone enemy king can suddenly have none at all while not being in check.
The habit is the same one that saves the king and queen mate: before every quiet move, count the enemy king’s legal squares. If it is zero and he is not in check, find another move. And if the position is already mate-in-one with the pieces you have, take it rather than promoting for the sake of it. A new queen you never use is a new way to draw.